HTower's Complete CONSTITUTION revision

[H Tower]

DON'T CLICK THE INTERNAL LINKS IN THE CONSTITUTION!!!

Article II: Executive Branch: The Ministers

1. General Contents

(a) The members of the Executive Branch are called ministers and the positions in the Exective Branch are called ministerial offices or executive offices.
(b) Any citizen may become a candidate for an executive office by expressing his desire to in the thread started by the Court as described in Article V, Section 1-e.
(c) An elected minister is charged with the duties explained in this Chapter 2 of this article until the end of the term for which the minister was elected.
(e)The terms for all elected offices last one month. All ministers will remain in office for this period unless they resign or are impeached before the end of it.
(f) If a minister will be unable to perform its duties for some part of the term, this minister is obliged to choose a willing citizen as delegate, who will act on his behalf, until further notice from the minister or the end of the position term, whichever is the sooner. This delegate will still be subordinated to the citizen being replaced. A minister may be the delegate of a fellow minister.
(g) A minister who expects to have to appoint a delegate for a significant proportion of the term is encouraged to resign.
(h) Every in-game action made or recommended to the President by a minister must be posted to the forum, no matter how insignificant it is.
(i) All resolutions passed by the citizens through a resolution poll declared valid by the Court must be obeyed by all ministers and will overrule all decisions made by ministers in order to make its content part of the game.

2. Government Positions

I. The President
(a) The President shall physically play the game on a regular and scheduled basis whenever possible and post the save and a complete report of the game events to the forum.
(b)The President is encouraged to use turnchats, turnthreads, or any other similar method while playing the game.
(c) The President must follow the instructions of the Court, the Ministers and their delegates while playing the game and doesn't hold any veto powers unless specifically named in the constitution. If an instruction is clearly erroneous, or by changed circumstances made impossible or harmful the President may decide in the best interest of the game.
(d) In case of missing orders for a whole turn from a minister and all his delegates the President may only play on if at least two cabinet members and 3 other citizens are present in a turn chat.
(e) The President is in charge of naming all new cities of the empire regardless of how the cities were created or assimilated. A name has to be evaluated by the citizens through an Official Poll (article III, section 3-II) before a city is named.
(f) The President is in charge of all the Empire settings and sliders, including Rations, Workday, Wages, Public Works rate and Science rate.
(g) The President has the power over the money reserve. Therefore every money spending decision must have the approval of the President in order to be act.

II. The Minister of Domestic Affairs
(a) The Minister of Domestic Affairs is responsible for managing all cities. Including their distribution of specialist citizens and production queues, rushed production requests and disbanding of cities.
(b) The Minister of Domestic Affairs can only disband a city after this action be evaluated by the citizens through an Official Poll (article III, section 3-II).
(c) The action of Rush buy build queue items can only be perfomed with the President's approval.
(d) The Minister of Domestic Affairs is ultimately responsible for settlers, choosing site for new cities and moving these units to this site.

III. The Minister of Infrastruture
(a) The Minister of Infrastructure is ultimately responsible for the placement of tile improvements, choosing the best tile and the best improvement, with the current reserve of public workers.

IV. The Minister of Diplomacy, Trade and Science
(a) The Minister of Diplomacy, Trade and Science is responsible for gifts, requests, exchanges and agreements with other nations. Any paying of gold has to be approved by the President.
(b) The Minister of Diplomacy, Trade and Science can only propose a gift to another civilization or give in to a demand of tribute with the approval of the president. Exchanges of cities need the approval of the Minister of Domestic affairs. Disarmement treaties need the approval of the Minister of Defence.
(c) The Minister of Diplomacy, Trade and Science has the control over all unconventional units, except settlers. Spending gold with the unconventional units orders has to be approved by President. Any action which would result in a declaration of war has to be evaluated by the citizens through an Official Poll (article III, section 3-II).
(d) The Minister of Diplomacy, Trade and Science controls all internal and foreign trade.
(e) The Minister of Diplomacy, Trade and Science controls research.

V. The Minister of Defense
(a) The Minister of Defense controls all units and their orders including the disband order, except settlers and all other unconventional units.
(b)Any action which would result in a declaration of war has to be evaluated by the citizens through an Official Poll (article III, section 3-II).
(c) The Minister of Defense shall name all armies that he thinks is necessary to make discussions easier.


WHAT WAS CHANGED: terms now last exactly one month,fixed some grammar and has a proposal for how the president may play on even if he is missing a report from a minister. (section 2I(d):In case of missing orders for a whole turn from a minister and all his delegates the President may only play on if at least two cabinet members and 3 other citizens are present in a turn chat.)

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Article III: Judicial Branch: The Court

1. Purpose:

The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls and elections, violations of the Constitution, or any other legal dispute involving the game.

2. Construct of the Court:

(a) The Court is composed of 3 Judges who will serve a three month term of office. There is no limit to the number of terms a Judge may serve.
(b) Each Judge has to be elected by the people in a seperate election poll. Every month one of the Judge positions shall be open for election. This positition shall be the one of the Judge who has reached the end of his term.
(c) The moment the election of a Judge position starts, shall be the moment on which the Judge who enters the last month of his term becomes the Senior Justice.
(d) Section 2(c) only applies to regular elections at the end of a Judge's term. It does not apply to elections that take place to replace impeached Judges. The replacement for an impeached Judge shall serve for the remainder of the term that their predecessor was serving. If the Senior Justice was impeached, the new Judge shall become the Senior Justice. If another Judge was impeached, the Senior Justice shall keep his position.
(e) A Judge may not serve in other governmental posts.

3. Cases:

(a) The Court can only rule on cases filed. A case may be filed by any citizen who is not a Judge, by publically notifying the Senior Justice. This case must involve a dispute that the Court is empowered to rule upon.
(b) The Senior Justice will either accept or deny the case. This decision cannot be appealed. If the case is denied, the Senior Justice will publically inform the filer of the case, explaining the reason for the denial.
(c)If the case filed deals with the constitutionality of a poll, the judges may make an immediate ruling without the use of a public hearing if all the judges agree with the ruling. The ruling may be challenged by either the owner of the thread or the person who filed the case. A public hearing will then be commenced to hear the case.
(d) Upon acceptance the Senior Justice is to open a thread with the description of the case. A public hearing will be held in that thread lasting three days unless Section 3(c) applies.
(e) After three days, the thread will be closed and the Senior Justice will organize the Court's ruling. At least two Judges must vote on any ruling that is made. All rulings are immediately official and final as soon as two Judges have voted in favour of it.
(f) The only possibilty of an appeal is a Resolution poll put up by the citizen that filed the case, the respondent or by a Minister or the President. In that case, the current verdict is placed on hold until after the appeal is voted upon. The ruling of the Court can be declared void by means of a Resolution poll.
(g) If a ruling is declared void by appeal, a new public hearing will be held in accordance with sections 3(d), 3(e) and 3(f), with the exception that the public hearing may be closed in less than three days if the Court deems this appropriate.

4. Rights and responsibilities:

(a) The Court may make its own rules of procedure and enforce them upon citizens who are before it, so long as such rules are in accordance with the constitution.
(b) The Court will keep a record of all disputes, issues, and hearings before the Court. The Court will also keep a public record of the Constitution in its most current form. The Court may appoint a Clerk of the Court to keep these records.
(c) If the Court rules that the actions of certain Citizens are in violation with the Constitution or other rules of Lemuria, it may hand out punishments to these Citizens if it deems this appropriate. The Court will determine for itself what kind of punishment is applied, the punishment must fit the crime. However, no punishments may permanently affect a Citizens participation in the Democracy Game, the Court may not dismiss active members of government (although it is allowed to start up impeachment procedures as described in Article V) and the Court may not alter the Constitution (although it is allowed to start an Amendment poll, as described in Article IV).
(d) Punishments the Court hands out must include but are not limited to: warnings, impeachment procedures, barring Citizens from specific or any government offices in future elections, banning Citizens from the Democracy Game, declaring resolutions void, closing threads or polls, deleting or editing posts or threads, declaring polls invalid. Punishments which require action from the CtP2-Democracy Game forum moderator must be approved by this moderator, who shall offer an explanation to the Court if approval is not given.
(e) The Court may issue an injunction to halt any aspect of the game for up to 72 hours if at least two Judges agree to do so. Injunctions may only be issued for good cause. An injunction may only be continued beyond 72 hours if all three Judges agrees to do so. An injunction may be overturned at any time by a majority of the Court.
(f) The Court is responsible for organizing elections. It shall posting election polls and nomination thread whenever this is needed, as defined in article III and article IV.


WHAT WAS CHANGED
-Section 3(c) was added: (c)If the case filed deals with the constitutionality of a poll, the judges may make an immediate ruling without the use of a public hearing if all the judges agree with the ruling. The ruling may be challenged by either the owner of the thread or the person who filed the case. A public hearing will then be commenced to hear the case.
This will allow the court to rule quickly against a poll that is clearly unconstitutional but leaves room for either party of the case to challenge the ruling if they believe it is in error.
-The former sections 3(c), 3(d), 3(e), 3(f) are all bumped down one letter.
-Section 3(e) The accused(respondent of the case, owner of the poll) is now allowed to challenge the ruling. I can't believe we left this out before!
-Section 4(c) Removed the ambiguity as to what our nation is called, by replacing Lemuria|Apolymuria with Lemuria.
-clarified that there will be only one nomination thread by changing section 4(f) to say The Court is responsible for organizing elections. It shall posting election polls and nomination thread whenever this is needed, as defined in article III and article IV. instead of The Court is responsible for organizing elections. It shall posting election polls and nomination threads whenever this is needed, as defined in article III and article IV.

[H Tower]

don't click on the internal constitution links!

Article IV: Polling Rules

1. Definition and validity:

(a) All official decision making will be done through polls, in which Citizens can express their opinion on issues. A poll is the standard vBB poll feature in which people can anonymously vote for one of a list of options.
(b) Any Poll that is not Unofficial (see section 3) and that violates any of the rules specified in this Article will be declared invalid.
(c) Any polls not declared ELECTION, RESOLUTION, AMENDMENT, or OFFICIAL will be considered Unofficial.
(d) The Court has the right to rule over the validity of polls. Invalid polls should be considered Unofficial and may be closed if the Court requests this.

2. Poll Organization:

(a) The first post of all polls must contain the following elements:
* A clear and unbiased explanation of the question and the answers, if needed;
* Expiration date, if applicable;
* Links to related threads or other information sources, if any;
* Type (see section 4) and nature of the poll: information gathering or decision making.
(b) Two types of poll organization are allowed: Yes/No polls and multiple choice polls.
(c) Yes/No polls must have three options of which only one can be chosen. The three options must be:
* Yes, meaning that the voter agrees with what was stated in the poll;
* No, meaning that the voter does not agree with what was stated in the poll;
* Abstain, meaning that the voter does not have a specific opinion on what was stated in the poll or does not wish to express it. Abstain votes may not be considered to say anything about what was stated in the poll.
(d) Alternative terms for 'Yes' and 'No' may be used in a Yes/No poll, as long as their meaning is along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' (examples: 'I agree'/'I don't agree' or 'In favour'/'Against'). Terms are along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' when the question in the poll can be rephrased so that it can be answered with 'Yes' or 'No'.
(e) Multiple choice polls must have at least three options and cannot be multiple selection. Such polls must at least have an Abstain option as defined in section 3(c). All other options are open for the poll creator to fill in as he wishes, as long as they are clear and unbiased.

3. Poll Types:

There are 5 types of polls: Election polls, Official polls, Resolutions, Amendments and Unofficial polls.

I. Election polls:
(a) These polls must be started by the Court. They serve to elect the persons who will fulfill the official positions of the executive and judicial branches of the government, as defined in Article II and Article III of this Constitution.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'ELECTION', written in capital letters, and the name of the office for which the election is held.
(c) They have to be multiple choice polls with only the names of the candidates as options. They can only be decision-making polls, they cannot be used for not information gathering.
(e) They must follow the rules as defined in Article V of this Constitution.
(f) Election polls in accordance with section 1-f of Article V shall expire in five days and the Court must include the expiring day in the first post of the poll.

II. Official polls:
(a) These polls must be started by members of the executive branch of the government, as defined in Article II of this Constitution, and relate to the game.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'OFFICIAL', written in capital letters.
(c) They can be either Yes/No or multiple choice polls and can be used for either information gathering or decision making.
(d) The government official who started the poll may or may not follow the opinion of the majority of the voters. In case (s)he does not follow what was decided, (s)he must make this decision public. Failure to do so will be regarded withholding of information, as defined in Article I section 5, and can serve as grounds for Impeachment (see Article V).
(e) Official polls shall only expire in a day chosen by the officer who opened the poll. And if the poll has an expiring day the same officer who started it must include this information in the first post.

III. Resolutions:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the governement, and must be used to propose resolutions. resolutions, if passed, modify the rules that clearly affect the course of the game or the policy of the executive branch of the government (as defined in Article II of this Constitution). Except in case of impeachments which shall be decide according to Chapter 2 of Article V.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'RESOLUTION', written in capital letters.
(c) They have to be Yes/No polls. Multiple choice polls are not allowed as resolutions.
(d) resolutions may not violate or change the Constitution. Resolutions may change, amend or remove any existing resolutions or judicial decisions regarding resolutions.
(e) If more than 1/2 of the voters votes in favour of the resolution, at least 1/3 of all Citizens vote in the poll and the Court does not declare the poll invalid, the resolution is considered passed. All Citizens must from that time on obey it.
(f) Resolutions of the Constitution must be recorded by the Court. The person who proposed the Resolution that has been passed must inform the Court of this as soon as possible.
(g) The Court will resolve all conflicts of resolutions. The Court’s ruling on an interpretation of a resolution is of the same power and authority as that resolution.
(h) Resolution polls shall expire in three days and the citzen who started the poll must include the expiring day in its first post.

IV. Amendments:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the governement, and must be used to propose Amendments to this Constitution.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'AMENDMENT', written in capital letters.
(c) They have to be Yes/No polls. Multiple choice polls are not allowed as Ammendments.
(d) Amendments may change/append/override any existing Laws, judicial decisions regarding Laws or any number of existing sections of the Constitution.
(e) If more than 1/2 of the voters votes in favour of the Law, at least 1/3 of all Citizens vote in the poll and the Court does not declare the poll invalid, the Ammendent is considered passed. All Citizens must from that time on obey it.
(f) Amendments of the Constitution must be recorded by the Court. The person who proposed an Amendment that has been passed must inform the Court of this as soon as possible.
(f) Amendment polls shall expire in five days and the citzen who started the poll must include the expiring day in its first post.

V. Unofficial polls:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the government.
(b) They may only exist to debate or gather information. Their outcome should not affect the course of the game or the policy of the government.
(c) Unofficial polls are the only polls in which more than one option may be chosen from the list of options.
(d) They do not have to follow all the rules specified in this Article. However, rules specified in Article I of this Constitution must still be obeyed.


WHAT WAS CHANGED
-section 1(c) was changed so that all polls not specifically given titles of election, amendment, resolution or official are to be considered unofficial instead of polls started by non-citizens are to be declared unofficial. by law non-citizens cannot start any of the all capitalized type polls.
-tried to clear up the ambiguity of the word "can" in section 2(e)

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Article V: Government Changes

1) Elections.

(a) The Court is empowered to oversee all elections and is empowered to resolve any election disputes according to the rules in this Constitution.
(b) An election for a given government position is started if the term of the position is about to end or the person in the position is no longer in office for other reasons.
(c) If the reason for an election is the end of a term, the election process must start eight days before the end of the given government position term. The previous official will remain in office until the end of the term or until a new candidate is elected, whichever is the later.
(d) If the reason is the decision that the citizen in the government position can no longer perfom its duties, the election process must start immediately after this decision is made. Until a new candidate has been elected, the other members of the branch of government in question will appoint a substitute to temporarily take over the open position, allowing the game to continue.
(e) At the start of the election process, all citizens who wish to be candidates for an office must publicly express their candidacy in a nomination thread begun by the court. For this they have three days. No citizen may be a candidate for an elected office if such candidacy might cause this citizen to be in more than one elected office simultaneously.
(f) Once the time in which citizens may express their candidacy for a given elected office has expired, the Court will create an Election poll (see Article II, section 3.I) for the office, with the names of the candidates as options. The poll shall expire in five days.
(g) If only one candidate is available for an office, a Yes/No poll shall be held to decide if this person may serve in this office. This poll shall expire in five days.
(h) The candidate who received the majority of the votes after the election thread expires will be declared the new holder of the office for which he was a candidate.
(i) In case of a tie in the election poll, the other newly elected members of the same branch of government position in question whose election polls were not tied will vote again to decide which one of the tied candidates will take over this position. If all polls for executive branch positions are simultaneously tied then the Court (including the newly elected member, if there is one) shall select the President, and the President shall select the other ministers from the tied candidates in their respective election polls.
(j)In case of a tie in the election of a judge, the newly elected president will vote along with the two judges already in office in deciding who will be the new judge.

2) Impeachment or Resignations.

(a) Any Citizen may bring the case of impeachment of an elected Minister, President, or Judge to a member of the Court.
(b) The Court shall review the allegations made, allow an answer by the accused, and by a vote determine if there are proper and legal grounds to hold a Resolution poll to decide on impeachment. If the accusations are found to be without legal merit, the allegations shall be dismissed.
(c) Should a member of the Court be the subject of impeachment, he shall not take part in the decision by The Court. The President shall sit in this Court member place for the sole determination of whether the impeachment has merit, and shall be considered a "Judge" for that vote only.
(d) If the Court decides there are grounds for impeachment, it shall start a poll in which it clearly states the person to be impeached and outlines the events that led to the request for impeachment. If the impeachment is confirmed by a majority of the voters in the poll, the officer in question shall be removed from the office, losing all rights and responsibilities thereof and the court must initiate nominations for an election to fill the office.
(e) If an officer wishes to resign this officer will be asked to remain in the office until the end of the election to decide who will replace him. This overrules section 2(f). If the officer is unwilling to remain in office then paragraph 2(f) applies.
(f) Until another citizen is elected to fill the office in question, the same branch of government will choose a willing citizen to fill that office. The first person considered will be the citizen who disputed the office with the impeached person in the last election. The chosen citizen will have the word temporary as a prefix to the name of the office this citizen holds.
(g) If the term of an office filled by a temporary officer will end in less than two weeks the temporary officer will remain in the office until the end of the term. Otherwise a new election process for the office in question shall start and the temporary officer will remain in the office only until a new officer for the position is elected.


WHAT WAS CHANGED
-section 1(b) changed the begining of the election period to when the term "is about to end" in replacement of "has ended"
-section 1(b) changed "can no longer perform his duties" to "is no longer in office for other reasons"
-section 1(e) added "in a nomination thread begun by the court" after publicly express candidacy
-section 1(h) changed "majority of the votes and the election thread expires, this person will be declared" to "majority of the votes after the election thread expires will be declared"
-Added section 1(j) just in case a tie in the vote for judge occurs.
-section 2(f) changed "the court will choose a willing citizen" to "the same branch of government will choose a willing citizen" as the CON stands we have two conflicting rules! Section 1(d) and section 2f)!
-section 2(f) changed "The court shall give first preference to its members or" to "The first person considered will be" [i]No member of the government is allowed to hold two postions at once, so everyone already in the government must automatically be skipped.

[J Bytheway]

Many of the same changes I had planned to recommend , though I was planning to go one article at a time (which is, in retrospect, probably a bad idea).

One further thing I would ask for - can we please conventionalise the references to portions of the con as Articles (I, II,...), Sections (1, 2,...), Subsections (I, II,...) and paragraphs (a, b,...). That should make things clearer.

[Pedrunn]

I do not agree with the change in the article II.

I dont get the change of the Aticle III section 3-e.

The other look nice to prevent ambiguity and to make the con clear but i need to give a futher look

[mapfi]

That will certainly clear things up a bit. I mostlx agree, but there are just a few points I don't like:

Term-length
I think it's better to have 4 week terms, the good thing as this election has shown now, is that we can start nominations always on sunday evening GMT and let the eldtions end Monday evening GMT. Like this, the weekend is always included in both nominations and elections (only not for our fellow australians and new zealanders) and the outgoing government can hold another last turn chat on the weekend before leaving office. I don't think that many people will have time for turn chats on weekdays. I don't see any advantages for a one-month term - so tell me?

Missing orders for a whole turn
I still think we don't need to change anything here - the con requires our ministers to appoint delegates if they are not around and that should very well be enough. I'm against taking away power from the ministers and give it to the pres (who has more than enough power) or the people present in a chat (who are not an adequate representation of the community).

That's the two most important points for me. Otherwise good work!

[Locutus]

Mapfi,
H Tower explained why the term should be 1 month instead of 4 weeks in this CtP1DG thread. I for one wholeheartedly agree with him.

On the missing orders issue I agree with you though: a Minister has the duty to make sure a delegate can replace him whenever he's absent.

Other than that, all these proposed changes are great

[H Tower]

Pedrunn:I'll give an example for ArticleIII section 3(e): As the constitution currently stands, If I accused you of cheating while playing the game, or playing ahead, and the court convicted you, you would not be allowed to appeal the decision. MY change would allow you to challenge.

Mapfi: missing orders: what do you mean whole turn do you mean a single turnchat or round of play by the president? or do you mean a whole term? Those are two very different things, I want to make sure we're using the same definitions here.

Mapfi: term length: nothing is preventing the starting of elections always on a sunday evening, i removed the sentance that says the election process must always begin exactly 8 days before the end of the term. you can still start elections on sunday night or whenever, but there will just be a lame duck period for the outgoing administration.

Of course, all changes can be changed back, or changed some more depending on what people think.

btw, all of you are the exact people i envisioned replying to this thread first

[mapfi]

ok, I don't exactly agree with you on term length but I guess we could leave that up to the Senior Justice to find good starting days.

As for the missing orders - I do mean a turn. While a turn now is nothing but one move in a few weeks it'll be a whole lot of orders and it's just plain undemocratic if this will be decided without the ministers consent. That's why he got elected.

[H Tower]

i was hoping to see more debate on this.

to recap: the only thing that seems to be contested is the president waiting (or not) for orders from missing ministers. Would people vote for these amendments if i removed the change and left that for another time? I'd hate to see such a broad revision, covering so many neccesary changes be struck down because of a single section...

[J Bytheway]

I would vote for it

[Dinner]

HTower: You put a lot of work into this.

[mapfi]

before you put it to a vote I would prefer if you took part of J Bytheway's stuff in too - e.g. to separate impeachment and resignation stuff is a good idea

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

i don't see a point for not voting for those changes

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

well, after thinking about it, there is one point to add:

to prevent a conflict of interests no member of the court should be allowed to hold a position in a party (like chairman or something like that)

[Locutus]

There aren't many radical ideas in here, so not much debate was to be expected. Anyway, I'll vote for this, although incorporating J Bytheway's ideas would be a good idea.