Writing a New Constitution

[Octavian X]

Looking at this poll, (and assuming Aidun's change of vote was not noted in the poll itself), the citizens of Apolytonia want to write a new, detailed constitution.

We've got to get started on this if we ever plan on starting to play this game.

I propose the following...

A. A President, VP, and four ministers: Domestic, FA, Military, and Science (the latter added due to the increased science trading activity we'll need to catch up with the AI at this level) to form an executive power. Give them powers that generally match their names. Allow ministers to appoint own deputies with Senate approval. Give the president the power to appoint people to fill vacant positions, with council approval (see below).

Form an executive council with the VP, and ministers. Give the council power, through a council vote, to confirm Presidential appointments, and to override an elected official's instructions. In the event of an override of instructions, give the President the option of a veto of the override. Similarly, give the council the option, through unanimous vote, option to override Presidential veto. Consider making a council vote part of the process of amending the constituion, or another similar document (see bottom).


B. Regional Administrators, elected by the populace. Give the domestic minister power to define regions, and approve rush request. Allow military to override RA instuctions in the event of invasion. Allow domestic to override RA instuctions if a city is in danger of culture flip. Also make the domestic minister the RA of the region where the capital is locate, and admin of all cities not within a defined region. Allow RAs to appoint own deputies.

C. The courts: Set up three justices, a public defender, and a judge advocate.
In trails, give the public defender the duty of defending the person(s) in quesiton, and make the judge advocate act as prosecutor.
Give the Justices their current powers. Allow them to elect their own Chief Justice (I dunno, just sounds cooler. )
Allow Justices to serve three month terms. Allow defender and advocate to serve one month terms. In the beginning of the game, force one justice to serve one month, force one justice to serve two terms, allow third to serve for three, so that there will be a new judicial election each term.

In addition to this, we could also consider creating two documents to govern the country. One, the constitution, would have everything we want to be cememented in the government (basic rules, positions, etc.). These rules would be hard to change, because they would be the foundation of the nation. This second document would have the various procedure that runs the country. This document would be easy to change (perhaps with a vote of the council).

OK, time for all to criticize to your heart's content.

[Kloreep]

Re: Writing a New Constitution

All of the below is IMO, of course.

Originally posted by Octavian X
Looking at this poll, (and assuming Aidun's change of vote was not noted in the poll itself), the citizens of Apolytonia want to write a new, detailed constitution.

We've got to get started on this if we ever plan on starting to play this game.

Not necessarily. It's quite possible to play without a constitution for a little while, especially in the relatively simple early game. Legoland didn't ratify its constitution till after the PTW DG started, but we did fine nonetheless. However, I do think we need one, especially one establishing a court, before something goes wrong.

I propose the following...

A. A President, VP, and four ministers: Domestic, FA, Military, and Science (the latter added due to the increased science trading activity we'll need to catch up with the AI at this level) to form an executive power. Give them powers that generally match their names.

I don't think we need a science minister; science trading can be well handled by the FAM, so that would leave deciding what to research. If there's anything the current three-minister system leaves out, it's a Minister of Economy - a position that can be very good for the game, IMO; reddawg kept our budget tight and well balanced while serving as Economy Minister in SPDG I, and I'd like to see that position kept. This position would control the slider, expenditures from all three sectors (FAM purchases, DM rushes and SMC upgrading), and could control research as well in order to make this position more on par with the other ministers. We could either create a new Economy Minister, or leave it as it is in the NewCon and give the power to the Prez, who can then appoint a deputy or even do it him/herself. I'd go with a ministerial position, but appointment could work as well.

Allow ministers to appoint own deputies with Senate approval.

I don't think they should need senate approval, especially considering that each minister may have several deputies later on. So long as the minister is ultimately responsible for their deputies' actions, I don't see a need for senate approval.

Give the president the power to appoint people to fill vacant positions, with council approval (see below).

Form an executive council with the VP, and ministers. Give the council power, through a council vote, to confirm Presidential appointments, and to override an elected official's instructions.

I think both of these powers should be given to the people (possibly with the president also given an emergency override power).

In the event of an override of instructions, give the President the option of a veto of the override. Similarly, give the council the option, through unanimous vote, option to override Presidential veto. Consider making a council vote part of the process of amending the constituion, or another similar document (see bottom).

I dislike the idea of a High Council. And considering that several people commented they wanted the Newcon's cabinet veto power removed (basically an unofficial, not quite so powerful High Council), I'd guess others here feel the same, though I don't really know.

B. Regional Administrators, elected by the populace. Give the domestic minister power to define regions, and approve rush request. Allow military to override RA instuctions in the event of invasion. Allow domestic to override RA instuctions if a city is in danger of culture flip. Also make the domestic minister the RA of the region where the capital is locate, and admin of all cities not within a defined region. Allow RAs to appoint own deputies.

Interesting ideas. I don't know if it would work; we barely had enough RAs the last few terms of SPDG I (and had a shortage before that), so there might be trouble with either uncontested elections, or a few contested ones and several empty ones. I have seen people request they be mayors (control one city), so it would be a good idea for RAs to be able to have deputies of their own, but I don't think that needs to be heavily officialized.

C. The courts: Set up three justices, a public defender, and a judge advocate.
In trails, give the public defender the duty of defending the person(s) in quesiton, and make the judge advocate act as prosecutor.
Give the Justices their current powers. Allow them to elect their own Chief Justice (I dunno, just sounds cooler. )
Allow Justices to serve three month terms. Allow defender and advocate to serve one month terms. In the beginning of the game, force one justice to serve one month, force one justice to serve two terms, allow third to serve for three, so that there will be a new judicial election each term.

I'm interested in hearing the opinions of justices who served on the court in SPDG I here; what should be changed? Kept? Removed? Added?

In addition to this, we could also consider creating two documents to govern the country. One, the constitution, would have everything we want to be cememented in the government (basic rules, positions, etc.). These rules would be hard to change, because they would be the foundation of the nation. This second document would have the various procedure that runs the country. This document would be easy to change (perhaps with a vote of the council).

This was basically done under the NewCon, but there was still a lot defined in the constitution. I'd like to see this taken to a great extreme than in SPDG I.

OK, time for all to criticize to your heart's content.

Okay.

[Octavian X]

I like the economic minister idea - the domestic position does seem to have too much power. The Science position, I can't decide whether it's good or not.

An executive council would streamline and speed up most processes. Let's say the military minister disappears, without a deputy. In this dire example, a council vote for approval of a Presidential appointee would go faster than a Senate vote.

Elected RAs - The simple solution to a shortage would be bigger regions, and thus, fewer RAs. We could also allow someone to be RA of more than one region. If worse comes to worse, the domestic minister would be in charge of those empty regions.
Mayors are a nice idea - I've seem them used in advisory capacities. Making them official positions appointed by RAs for a term to give instructions (overridably by the RA, of course) would be nice.

[Panzer32]

RA's should not be elected; they should be essentially deputies in the domestic ministry. I, for one, probably would not have become an RA if there was an election. Anyways, there is almost always a shortage of these, so elections would be redundant.

[WhiteBandit]

Not to mention that being an RA is a somewhat tedious job and you might not have enough people to fill the election spots. I like what we did before where the Domestic Minister appointed RA's if he/she chose to.

[civman2000]

I'm interested in hearing the opinions of justices who served on the court in SPDG I here; what should be changed? Kept? Removed? Added?

I think the judiciary shouldn't be changed (I don't really think the NewCon should be changed significatnly at all though) other than perhaps giving the court the power to appoint someone, with their consent, as defendant in cases of the constitutionality of laws or other situations where there is no clear defendant. Earlier, the person who proposed laws was always the defendant, and in general that is a good idea, but the court should be able to name someone else if the proposer doesn't want to defend their law or for any other reason that comes up will not defend it.

I don't think the Executive should change much either. I think vetoes should be kept but the system for them should not be changed. I don't like the idea of an executive council with any powers other than vetoing the senate though; all other powers should stay with the Senate. I agree with panzer about RAs.

One small thing i would like to be changed in the constitution is furthering the 1st and IIRC only amendment to teh NewCon. The amendment allowed executives to post bills on things under their jurisdiciton, but i don't really see why there should be any restricitons on what bills they can propose.

Just a few words from a NewCon fan who favors democracy over practicality and convenience .

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Octavian X
An executive council would streamline and speed up most processes. Let's say the military minister disappears, without a deputy. In this dire example, a council vote for approval of a Presidential appointee would go faster than a Senate vote.

I prefer the NewCon system - the Prez gets the power in the absence of a minister and deputies. Elections don't take that long (usually only the span of one chat, if not none). And if the President isn't fit to command whatever area it is, there will hopefully be someone in the chat (perhaps another minister) who can "advise" unofficially for that chat. (I know this wouldn't work for SMC in a war, but a war turnchat should be postponed anyway so new elections can be held for SMC in such a case; and while FA isn't organized without a minister, chat attendees can help the President check for deals.)

Originally posted by Octavian X
Elected RAs - The simple solution to a shortage would be bigger regions, and thus, fewer RAs.

Wouldn't this run the risk of narrowing the list down to even fewer RAs? Bigger regions mean a bigger time commitment on a RA's part, which might drive some people away.

Originally posted by Octavian X
We could also allow someone to be RA of more than one region.

Then those who want bigger regions could essentially get them.

Originally posted by Octavian X
If worse comes to worse, the domestic minister would be in charge of those empty regions.

Yes, ministers should always be responsible for their duties, even if they're normally given to deputies.

Originally posted by civman2000
I think the judiciary shouldn't be changed (I don't really think the NewCon should be changed significatnly at all though)

I agree that the NewCon should be used as a base. Whether or not it's changed signifigantly will depend on this discussion.

Originally posted by civman2000
other than perhaps giving the court the power to appoint someone, with their consent, as defendant in cases of the constitutionality of laws or other situations where there is no clear defendant. Earlier, the person who proposed laws was always the defendant, and in general that is a good idea, but the court should be able to name someone else if the proposer doesn't want to defend their law or for any other reason that comes up will not defend it.

Interesting idea... I wouldn't have an objection to this.

Originally posted by civman2000
One small thing i would like to be changed in the constitution is furthering the 1st and IIRC only amendment to teh NewCon. The amendment allowed executives to post bills on things under their jurisdiciton, but i don't really see why there should be any restricitons on what bills they can propose.

Agreed. IIRC, the reasoning behind this clause was to try to create an atmosphere where there would be some very active senators in addition to the ministers, but it didn't really accomplish much except putting a vise on anyone who got into public office.

[Kuciwalker]

I think a Pres, VP, SMC, DM, FAM, three Justices, and perhaps an Econ minister are enough.

[UnOrthOdOx]

/me takes the stand and addresses the audience gathered within the great hall.

My fellow Citizens.

This has been a subject of much thought on the part of myself and many of you here. We have currently a system before us that has been proven to work, for the most part, and that has already lead to a relatively smooth progress of the original DG.

The basic structure of the government is well defined, and has worked near flawlessly with the ministers and executives being able to work cohesively and expediently with few interruptions. While we can certainly entertain ways to bring a bit more roleplay into these roles for those who choose to play along, we should not, IMO change with any real degree the roles of the President, VP, and Ministers with the possible exception of the VP being elected and not appointed.

The court as well has served its function with near perfection. I challenge any of you to look at the court thread and not find a well thought, and fair verdict within any of the cases. I myself have found occasion to disagree with some of those, but that does not preclude the fact that they were fair, unbias and well thought in reaching that verdict.

When looking at the newcon, then, what is broken?

First and foremost in my mind is the Senate.

Yes, you heard me the Senate is broken and in need of serious repair. My major concern with the Newcon upon it's original presentation to us was with the senate. The document makes no mention of any form of centralizing the organization of the Senate. It is free to do as it pleases. This is actually a good idea. However, what occured was that the Senate did NOT organize, much as I feared. The other flaw that this presents is that it would nearly take another document in order for the Senate itself to organize. If it were not for the monumental efforts of Kloreep, I dare say there would be no existing record of ANY bills nor their implications. This leaves us that we are one person's vacation, computer failure, or simple leaving that will predicate the entire downfall of the entire Senate's ability to even point to it's own bills. Do not get me wrong, if anything, I feel the public needs be more involved, I don't know what needs done, specifically. I'm working on it, though ultimately I believe it will all rely heavily on Ministers taking it upon themselves to get the public interested and involved on the powers as they pertain to each ministers job. I am planning on testing several ways for ministers to do this and possibly leading by example if I should gain much public input in this first term.

The next thing that is broken is the Court.

Yes, it was but a moment ago I was praising their decisions. The problem is the TIMING of the decisions. Take any Impeachment attempt. See court case almost 7. First taking a few days for the court to respond to taking nearly a week for the actual case to even begin, which itself would have taken days, at which point the Impeachment would have been only symbolic since elections were starting anyway. IMO impeachments are needed. There are times when officials, for whatever reason including RL will be unable to perform their job here. That is not to insult them for having problems or a RL, but to ensure our government runs on full strength. Also, suppose this case would have been reguarding the use of a leader, a government change, or some other in-game issue. Would we have had to suspend the game until a decision was reached? The court process needs to be streamlined in some way. Perhaps allowing ANY judge to begin a trial without first allocating 3 judges to decide if the case is needed or not? Still requiring 3 judges for a RULING once they have had time to read through the case. This would START the case immediately, but would also give the responding judge several days to convene a meeting of the Judges to discuss and rule on the case in question while the case itself was being debated by the respective parties. We could also have it required that the plaintiff is responsible for copying the defendant as well as the members of the court with the complaint, to speed the process of notifying the defendant?

The third, and final thing that is broken IMO is the Constitution itself.

It is a beast. I am willing to bet that there is a large number of the population here who have yet to take the time to read the thing through all the way. It is confusing, large, and written as a legal document, which is not something many of us are used to reading, especially for those who are not native to English. I read it once when it was being voted upon, and find it difficult to sift through now if I am needing to look something up. At the very least it should be organized with a table linking to specific sections for ease of a quick lookup of a particular section. I suggest finding some way to simplify the wording, myself. The reason for this is that the wording and complexity of the document has created a dicotomy within the demogame. There has become a rift between those who know and enjoy the laws and those who simply want to play the game. There must be a compromise to be had somewhere.

[Kuciwalker]

How about we allow votes of no confidence? If the vote passed, the official woudl be "impeached" until the Court could make a decision.

[Octavian X]

If people want to stick to appointed RAs, I'd at least advocate some sort of Senate approval.

And, in response to Unorthodox...

The Senate: create a position with, or assign to the Vice President, the duty of simply taking time to organize the Senate. Have this person keep a record of bills that go up for vote. Simply a link, description, and a record of pass/fail in a thread would do.

The Court: Perhaps we could give the court more power. In the case of a bad official, allow one member of the court to issue an injunction or something to force a bad minister to stop acting, and make his deputy act. Similar action could be taken by a justice to hold off a chat if a planned game action is in question. Of course, this power would be reserved for times when that justice feels an accustion has the weight to stop the game dead in it's tracks, with the option of an override of the injunction by 3 other justices.
However, IMHO, before a full fledged trial is to begin, you need all the justices to know. There will always be a questionable accustion that really should waste the time of the court.

Third, the constitution itself. To simplify it, you could divide it into multiple documents.
Or, you could do what Fanatika did with the official rulebooks. While the documents themselves are not simple, they are organized in an easily accesable, readable fashion.
If we can't make it easier on the eyes with a html document outside the forums, use the [ code ] tags in the foums. For example...

A.  Test
	1.  Bigger Test.
	2.  Another test.
		a.  Last test.
B.  Continuing...

[Panag]

Originally posted by skywalker
How about we allow votes of no confidence? If the vote passed, the official woudl be "impeached" until the Court could make a decision.

hi ,

sounds good , but we have to be carefull its not going to be used cause some-one follows an agenda , .....

have a nice day

[Togas]

I appreciate Octavian X for starting up this thread, however, I don't think what we need is just to import Fanatika's Con into our game. We've had 2 prior Constitutions. The first failed due to vagueness, the second "failed" due to completeness ... being too large and spelling things out to such a degree that people were intimidated to read the entire document.

Unorthodox has some good points about the Con. One of my main concerns when joining the Court in the last game was to try to fix the tedious system of Justice that we'd had to live with. I think we were on the right track when the game concluded, but there is still more to be done.

I'd like to see things simplified. I've never been fond of our complicated Impeachment system, and other system can be axed entirely. There seems to be enough public trust in our Ministers and Judges that less "checks & balances" need to be imposed ... less bureaucracy and "red tape".

I propose we form a Revision Committee to not REDRAFT an entirely new Constitution, just to tweek, reoganize, and simplify the one we have. A group of 4, perhaps less, to polish the problem areas, simplify the language, and make some key changes.

The other option, it seems, is to draft something entirely new, and I have to admit that it's not as easy to do as some might imagine. I believe it would be fun to come up with an entirely different style of Constitution for this game. I just don't think that it would be fun for most of the team -- many would find it just a distraction.

--Togas

[Beta]

I like Togas' idea of the committee to do the tweaking. I too think the current con is good, but as has been said - almost too complete. A bit of a re-write may do it.

On other points - appointed RA's.

No science minister.

And the senate - well - people gotta do what people gotta do. I would hate to wrap too many rules around teh senate. It will be interesting to see if political parties can develop to the extent that they become meaningful in the senate.

Now - most imortantly - we need to change some of the names. We are Vikings!!! Chieftain and Vice-Chieftains? Regional nobles? Warlords instead of senators?

Chieftan
Vice Chieftain for Foreign Affairs, etc
Regional Noble for Valhalla West, etc
Warlord Beta the Bold.

[Octavian X]

Togas - Fanatika's infamously large constitution is gone. Some people think (myself not included) that an extremely simplistic constitution will do for DGIII...

My goal isn't an import - The current Con works. I agree that some redrafting could be used - perhaps the document could be reformatted for simpler reading along with rewritten for some changes.

I like the idea of a committee to do some work. Rule discussions tend to go better when there's a full proposal on the table. In fact, I'll volunteer to be on a committee of this nature. With the wide-ranging experience I have in democracy gaming, I think I'd be helpful

As to what BetaHound proposed - rather than making titles official, just give elected officials leeway to call themselves what they want. During my tenure as President of Fanatika, I called myself King to reflect our monarchy in the game.