NewCon loopholes, issues, etc.

[Arnelos]

Ok, I was originally sending this as a PM to members of the Con Con, but's WAY TOO LONG for that In fact, the whole thing was apparently 20,258 characters before this sentense and there's a 20,000 character limit... so now it has to be two posts

Here's what I have after going over the NewCon far more closely than the first time:

Article I. The Executive Branch

1 The President
(b) The game shall be played on a regular and scheduled basis whenever possible,

Perhaps "a regular and scheduled basis" needs to be defined. The Court should likely be given some guidance on what this means in the event anyone should ever bring a case before the Court asserting that the game was NOT being played "on a regular and scheduled basis".

(i) In the event of a national emergency, the President may halt play so that the crisis can be resolved.

I agree with GodKing, "national emergency" needs to be explicitly defined (what things or types of things account for a "national emergency").

(d) The President must follow the instructions of the Senate and Ministers while playing the game unless the instruction is clearly erroneous, or made impossible and/or harmful by changed circumstances. If the President makes changes to the instructions due to these problems, he must follow the will of the Senate or Minister in making the changes.

I agree with GodKing's comments here as well... if something is made clearly harmful by changed circumstances, that may mean a "national emergency" and a cessation of play until resolved. The EXCEPTION, which should be explicitly noted here, is for events that take place in the inter-turn phase, events that cannot be placed on hold and the President is forced to make an immediate decision on. The difference between this classification of event and that for which the game can be stopped should be made.

(g) The President has control over the economy/science/luxury slider and may make changes when he feels they are appropriate.

I assume that this gives the Senate the power to pass non-binding resolutions asking the president to change the slider, but the President is under no obligation to actually change the slider due to Senate action. That's fine, I'm just double-checking that that is indeed what the ConCon wants here.

(h) The President decides what technology to research next.

Same question as the last one about non-binding Senate resolutions.

(i) The President approves all spending requests in the absence of a direct spending law or motion by the Senate.

I love this line... "in the absense" is precisely the correct wording here. Other parts of the document should model this more...

(ii) The Vice President assumes all powers and responsibilities of the President should the President be unable to perform.

I agree with GodKing that the Court would likely benefit from having additional guidance in this document about what exactly "unable to perform" entails.

2 The Supreme Military Commander
(b) The Supreme Military Commander may not use a Great Leader to form an army without approval of the Senate. The Senate alone decides if and when a Great Leader may rush a project.

I agree with the intent here, but it could likely be re-worded for purely cosmetic reasons to say, quite simply, that the Senate has authority on the matter (and explicitly cite Article II, Section 9). Otherwise, just say that the SMC has to move the GL to a safe location, as I believe GodKing suggested.

(c) The Supreme Military Commander must make a request for funds to upgrade any unit. The request must be first made to the Senate and may also be made to the President. If the Senate has not decided the issue prior to the game being played, the President may then decide the issue.

Once again, this is a nicely worded way of saying this.

3 The Foreign Affairs Minister

(b) The Foreign Affairs Minister negotiates peace agreements, but only after the approval of either the President or Supreme Military Commander.

This is precisely the type of wording I have trouble with... Does this mean that the FAM gets to chose whether to ask the President or the SMC? Does this means that if the President or SMC turns him down, he can ask the other one? What does this mean if he asks both and they give him different answers? Does that mean he can pick the answer he likes? What basis does the Court have from this line to decide whether the President or the SMC has more authority to authorize this?

I would consider one of the following advisable as a solution to this problem:

1. The FAM must have the approval of the President. He must consult the SMC, but does NOT need his approval. I would consider this workable because the SMC exists to execute war and it is the FAM that exists to decide when and whether to fight. I would actually be in favor of this or #2 over #3, but I'm sure others disagree
2. The FAM has the authority to negotiate peace agreements. He should consult with the President and SMC, but the authority rests on his shoulders. I like this one, too.
3. The FAM must obtain approval from BOTH the President AND the SMC.

As I stated, in my opinion the FAM exists to decide matters of foreign policy and strategy (policy-making) and the SMC exists to decide how to execute those FAM decisions (policy implementation). This is how democracies handle their militaries and it's a good model.

(c) Any trade, exchange, or gift that involves giving away gold must be approved by either the Senate or the President.

Same problem as the last line with the "or". What if the Senate passes a bill denying the FAM the approval, but the President approves of it? What if it's the other way around? Additionally, does this line mean the FAM gets to decide who to ask? This really needs to be clarified.

(d) Any trade, exchange, or gift that involves giving away cities or workers must be approved by either the Domestic Minister or the President.

Found another one... Who decides which to ask? HOW do they decide? What if both volunteer different answers? Who decides which one is valid or makes the final decision?

4 The Domestic Minister
(c) The Domestic Minister is strongly advised to appoint Deputies and Advisors to assist him or her in this job. A City Planner, Expansion Advisor, and Public Works Advisor are recommended. These deputies, and any others appointed, may be given any and all powers the Domestic Minister feels are necessary.

A constitution is not a place for listing "suggestions" to ministers... Giving them the power to establish such deputies is what a constitution does... in a sense, this already implies a suggestion.

This is admittedly an entirely cosmetic complaint

(d) The Domestic Minister may draw boundaries and regions within the nation and appoint governors over those regions who can recommend to the Domestic Minister and his advisors how to best manage those regions.

(e) The Domestic Minister may rush any project, but only with the approval of the Senate or President.

Here it is again... "Senate or President"... This needs to be changed as badly as the others and for the same reasons.

(f) The Domestic Minister may also create or alter any system for naming all cities, however that system or change must be approved by the senate.

Another entirely cosmetic point here... "however that system or change must" should be altered to "however that system or any change to it must"

5 Chain of Command
(a) In the event that the President is unable to perform his duties, they may be performed by the Vice President, Domestic Minister, Supreme Military Commander, or Foreign Affairs Minister, in that order. Vice Ministers do not substitute for their Minister in this instance.

"Unable to perform his duties" as decided by whom? I would suggest inserting a point that this is as decided by the President ("Hey, I can't do this turnchat") or as decided by either the Court with some explicitly stated criterion (number of days absent, whatever).

(b) Should a Minister not be able to perform his duties, they may be performed by his Vice Minister, a Deputy Minister with specific authority, or the President, in that order. However, if a Minister has given specific written instructions, those instructions may not be ignored absent an incident as described in Art I, Sec 1D.

Same complaint as for the last line... "unable to perform his duties" as decided by whom and upon what basis?

6 Deputy Ministers
(a) Any citizen, except Judges, may serve as a Deputy Minister to an elected Minister
(b) One Deputy Minister may be given the title of Vice Minister. A Vice Minister has the full power and authority of the Minister should the Minister be unable to perform his duties.

This line should end with a citation such as "as per Article I, Section 5b" and perhaps be slightly re-worded to accomodate the citation.

(c) All Deputy Ministers may be given any power granted to the Elected Minister, however the Minister must explicitly state what power has been granted to the Deputy.

Who does the Minister "explicity state" a transferal of power to? I assume the President, but this needs to be stated.

(d) A Deputy Minister may be removed from office at any time by the Minister, or by agreement of 2/3rds of the Senate.

A slightly differnt problem, but still related to the use of "or". If the Senate removes a deputy minister (one which various lines above give the minister the exclusive power to hire and fire), what prevents the Minister from just re-hiring their deputy minister who the Senate just fired?

(f) No Minister may serve as Vice Minister.

Why not just include this is 6b?

7 Other Powers of the Executive Branch
(b) The President and all the Ministers may make Executive Orders, which have the authority of a law, over any matters within their control so long as those orders do not conflict with any current law or the Constitution. Executive Orders may be amended or removed at any time by the maker, a subsequent President or Minister, or as a result of a law passed by the Senate that makes an Executive Order in conflict.

This line DOES (contrary to my understanding from first reading it) establish something of Senate supremacy in law-making over that of executive orders. However, it REALLY NEEDS to be re-worded to make it less confusing in that regard.

(i) Should one of these Ministers be unable to perform his duties, his Vice Minister may cast a Veto vote in his place.

This is an even more critical case where "unable to perform his duties" needs to be clarfied. And if it IS clarfied in another line, THIS LINE needs to cite that line in the text ("as per Article whatever, section whatever").

[Arnelos]

Article II. The Senate
1 All citizens who are not currently a Minister, President, or Judge are Senators

As long as this line remains in place (and I believe it should) this kills any notion that only people who sign up on some montly list are "senators", as citizenship (which here is explicitly equated with senatorship) is already established through Article IV, Sections 1-3 in a more liberal manner.

2 Any Senator may propose a law.
(a) To propose a law, a senator must post a poll that is clear, unbiased, states the proposed law in its entirety, and gives three options: “yea”, “nay”, and “abstain”.

Though this IS vague, the Court can probably use the lines in the old Constitution as a form of legal precedent to decide what "clear" and "unbiased" mean. However, it might be nice to newbie players for you to put those parts of the old constitution into this new one . Having been rather new all too recently myself, I can see how that might help .

(ii) Any “abstain” votes are considered solely for quorum purposes. “Abstain” votes may not be considered “yea” or “nay” votes.

I'm not really partial to either side of the debate on this line... abstain means different things in different legislatures really... those insisting that it means one thing and not the other are wrong. So it depends on what we want abstain to mean HERE on which way we want this.

(f) All citizens, not just senators, are allowed to vote in any poll.

Now, Article II, Section 1 just explictly stated that all citizens ARE senators... why on earth would a line so close to it imply that there are citizens who are NOT senators?

(g) Proposed laws may not violate or change the Constitution. Proposed laws may change any existing laws, Judicial decisions regarding laws, or Executive orders.

"judicial decisions regarding laws" needs to be changed to "judicial decisions regarding the interpretation of laws" because you don't intend to give the Senate the power to overturn a Court decision regarding the constitutionality of laws.

3 Senators may also propose motions, resolutions, orders, and decisions of the Senate. These are proposed in the same way as laws and follow the same rules. These carry the same authority as a law.

This is inaccurate, given Article I. The Senate is implied to have the ability to pass what I would call non-binding resolutions to request executive action on things executive officers have exclusive authority over... such things do NOT have the same level of authority as other laws the Senate can pass because they are non-binding.

4 The Senate has the power to declare war.

I agree with GodKing, this should be the sole power to declare war. You could probably just re-word this to say the Senate must approve of all declarations of war... which clarifies it and makes it similar to the line regarding alliances.

6 The Senate has the power to authorize drafts of citizens
7 The Senate has the power to change to a wartime economy
8 The Senate has the power to change the form of the government.
9 The Senate has the power to decide how Great Leaders are used

These lines do not clarify whether the Senate has the sole authority to authorize such things or that the Senate must approve of such actions.

Article III. The Court

The Court article is by far the best-written of all of the articles. My complements to whichever member(s) of the ConCon penned it.

Article IV. Citizens
1 Any person who has registered to participate in this Democracy Game is considered a citizen.
2 No person shall be denied the right to become a citizen.
3 No citizen shall be denied the right to vote in a poll.

And, given Article II, Section 1, a Senator. Someone should hunt to find any references to citizens being different from Senators I might ahve missed in this document and suggest that we get rid of it.

11 No citizen shall “play ahead” or make any irreversible changes to any of the saved games.

Does the Court already have a precedent for a punishment if this is violated? If not, we should probably explicitly establish what the punishment(s) might be.

Article V. Impeachment

1

2 Once Impeachment has been approved by the Court, the matter then goes to a hearing for Removal from Office of the accused.
(a) The Court shall start a thread for this purpose. The thread shall have an outline of the facts presented by the complainant and the response by the accused.
(b) The party who started the impeachment process will have a chance to elaborate on the summary and present the facts and evidence against the accused including all specific allegations.
(c) The accused shall have a chance to answer these allegations and elaborate on his defense. The accused shall have 3 days to respond once the allegations are posted by the complainant.
(d) Both parties must post their arguments for the people to see in the thread that was started by the Court for this specific purpose.
(e) After arguments are presented, the people may then debate the topic in the thread, and may request that the Court hold a public forum for arguments.
(i) This public forum will be a chat that shall be moderated by at least one member of the Court.
(ii) A public forum must occur within 3 days after the impeached posts his answer to the Impeachment thread.
(f) The people shall review the case and vote for or against removal from office of the accused in a poll that shall be started by the Court at the conclusion of the thread.
(i) A 2/3rd majority of the people must vote for removal for it to pass.
(ii) This poll shall last for 3 days.
(g) If for a valid reason the accused did not file his answer in a timely fashion, he or she will be able to make a case for filing a late answer to the Court.
(i) The Court may excuse a late filing by finding that it was with good reason.
(ii) This is the only means by which an impeachment may be reopened and re-presented to the public.
(h) No appeals of this vote can be made, except as stated in Section 2(g)

This is also well laid-out, much like the article about the Court. My complements.

4 While going through the impeachment process, the accused shall remain in control of his or her office, unless the Court has issued an injunction.

The grounds upon which the Court may make such an injunction should be stated here (perhaps as subsections).

Article VI. Conflict of Laws
3 No Executive may make an Order that violates or changes the Constitution, or any other existing law or Judicial decision.

Geesh... this line should be EXPLICITLY CITED in various cases above where I wondered about whether an executive could simply undo a legislative decision... those lines above still need to be re-worded to accomodate this rule, however.

6 If the dispute is between the President and a Minister, and there is insufficient time to allow the Court to resolve the dispute, the matter may be resolved by a quick poll of the citizens, then the matter may be taken up at a later time by the Court to officially resolve it.

I agree with GodKing, you need to define "quickpoll" here.

Article VII. Elections
5 No one may be a candidate for any two elected offices.

Just to thwart people who find this loop-hole funny, this should state "more than one", not "any two"

9 In the event that there is no candidate for President, the Senate must immediately elect a President.

Under what terms? What time length? As I think GodKing argued... is this not redundant? (any vacant office requires an election to replace it anyhow)

(a) A President so elected must immediately appoint a Vice President. The Vice President must then be confirmed by a majority of the Senate.

Just cite the line in Article I that says the same thing. IN fact, just say that a President so elected must follow the same procedures as laid out in Article I and be done with it .

Article IX. Amendments
1 Amendments to this Constitution can be proposed by any citizen. An amendment is passed and made Minister when 2/3rds or more of the citizens approve of the change to the Constitution.
(a) A poll to pass an amendment must be clear, unbiased, state the full text of the change proposed, and be open for at least 7 days.
(b) Abstain votes are not counted for or against passage.

As with laws, it would be nice to newbies to provide more clear guidance on what we mean by "clear" and "unbiased". I'm sure there are Court cases and things from the old Con we can use as a guide for writing that .

-------------------------------------------

Ok, enough Civ3dg for now I'm going to go do some other things with my time for now

[Duddha]

The current con con is a fluid document which allows for different interpretations in different situations. I think it would be a mistake to make to constitution too specific.

[Arnelos]

Duddha,

I don't think the suggestions above would make the constitution "too specific". As the constitution currently stands, there are numerous potential loop-holes and legal uncertainties that make it not specific ENOUGH. As the document currently stands, there are numerous lines that would give the Court huge problems should they have to rule on them...

[notyoueither]

Excellent Arnelos. It will be a bit before I can review your lengthy comments. However, rest assured that as a Justice, I have anticipated some of your concerns and believe that the thing is well thought out on the whole.

For instance, '... play the game on a regular and scheduled basis.'

What does that mean? Well, we are leaving that up to the people to decide. Does it mean the Pres can say, sorry, no turns for 2 weeks? No. the court would say no go, most likely.

Does it mean that the people and the executive can adjust the 'schedule'? You bet. Just as long as it is scheduled and that schedule is adhered to as much as possible.

[Panzer32]

Great work, Arnelos!!

I agree with your arguments, especially about the ... or the president. If we all work together, maybe this constitution will work well (i like the idea of being a senetor...)

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Excellent Arnelos. It will be a bit before I can review your lengthy comments. However, rest assured that as a Justice, I have anticipated some of your concerns and believe that the thing is well thought out on the whole.

For instance, '... play the game on a regular and scheduled basis.'

What does that mean? Well, we are leaving that up to the people to decide. Does it mean the Pres can say, sorry, no turns for 2 weeks? No. the court would say no go, most likely.

Does it mean that the people and the executive can adjust the 'schedule'? You bet. Just as long as it is scheduled and that schedule is adhered to as much as possible.

NYE,

Yes, this is basically what I'm asking for as one way to answer many of my concerns... The Court having a case history and thus precedents to use in order to justify decisions on terminology would go a long way toward resolving some of the "defintion" concerns.

As for the "A or B" concerns, those are more problematic because they are NEW elements to the constitution and thus no precedents exist pertaining to them yet. This is not to say that the Court is incapable of creating precedents concerning them, but I would personally prefer that the PEOPLE decide that issue by ratifying a more specific constitution than that the Court decides by interpreting a vague constitution.

All in all, though, as long the Court is using something of a common law approach and respecting precedent where appropriate, I recognize that that CAN fill in for some of the vagueness in constitutional wording.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Arnelos
All in all, though, as long the Court is using something of a common law approach and respecting precedent where appropriate, I recognize that that CAN fill in for some of the vagueness in constitutional wording.

This is precisely what the court seeks to do. If we did not, some of us would be leaving unwillingly, I would bet.

[Togas]

There's some good suggestions in here of potential loopholes we're going to close up, but .... come on! This level of dissection is self-serving pomposity.

This is a Constitution not a volumous code of laws, policy, procecure, and definitions. This is a framework document that will be colored in by both the Senate and the Court. This document is already 8+ pages long, which is far too much for any newbie to digest, and people want us to add more to it?

Secondly, how hard is it to figure out what "or" means? I'm baffled by this. If I said, "You have to get permission from John or Harry to go to the party" what does that mean? There's no ambiguity there. Either John OR Harry can say yes. You don't have to ask both, and if one says no, you can ask the other and still go to the party. How much more obvious do you need it to be?

--Togas

[Aggie]

One mention arnelos. You asked for the difference between Senators and citizens. Well the only one is this, minsiters/prez/vp are NOT senators. This just now made me think we need to change the senate declaring war, to "the citizery must approve war". Otherwise the minsiters et al are denied their right to vote in such an election which is of great importance.
Aggie

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Ok, I was originally sending this as a PM to members of the Con Con, but's WAY TOO LONG for that In fact, the whole thing was apparently 20,258 characters before this sentense and there's a 20,000 character limit... so now it has to be two posts

Here's what I have after going over the NewCon far more closely than the first time:



Perhaps "a regular and scheduled basis" needs to be defined. The Court should likely be given some guidance on what this means in the event anyone should ever bring a case before the Court asserting that the game was NOT being played "on a regular and scheduled basis".



I agree with GodKing, "national emergency" needs to be explicitly defined (what things or types of things account for a "national emergency").

We'll know it when we see it. BTW, the Senate may define what it considers an emergency. Flexibility.

I agree with GodKing's comments here as well... if something is made clearly harmful by changed circumstances, that may mean a "national emergency" and a cessation of play until resolved. The EXCEPTION, which should be explicitly noted here, is for events that take place in the inter-turn phase, events that cannot be placed on hold and the President is forced to make an immediate decision on. The difference between this classification of event and that for which the game can be stopped should be made.

See above. Also, common sense applies. The game can't be stopped during the inter-turn phase. How could the Pres be charged for not doing what is impossible to do?

I assume that this gives the Senate the power to pass non-binding resolutions asking the president to change the slider, but the President is under no obligation to actually change the slider due to Senate action. That's fine, I'm just double-checking that that is indeed what the ConCon wants here.

Yes. We wanted to give the President a bit of power so that they are not glorified gophers. 'Go here, get this. Do that...' We also provided for, and urged, the Presidents to delegate to deputies.

Same question as the last one about non-binding Senate resolutions.

Yes.

I love this line... "in the absense" is precisely the correct wording here. Other parts of the document should model this more...

This is good. Some of the wording elsewhere is being reviewed.

I agree with GodKing that the Court would likely benefit from having additional guidance in this document about what exactly "unable to perform" entails.

Common sense and tradition rule.

I agree with the intent here, but it could likely be re-worded for purely cosmetic reasons to say, quite simply, that the Senate has authority on the matter (and explicitly cite Article II, Section 9). Otherwise, just say that the SMC has to move the GL to a safe location, as I believe GodKing suggested.

I believe the SMC and GL provisions are adequate. The SMC controls their movement. The Senate decides their use.

This is precisely the type of wording I have trouble with... Does this mean that the FAM gets to chose whether to ask the President or the SMC? Does this means that if the President or SMC turns him down, he can ask the other one? What does this mean if he asks both and they give him different answers? Does that mean he can pick the answer he likes? What basis does the Court have from this line to decide whether the President or the SMC has more authority to authorize this?

I would consider one of the following advisable as a solution to this problem:

1. The FAM must have the approval of the President. He must consult the SMC, but does NOT need his approval. I would consider this workable because the SMC exists to execute war and it is the FAM that exists to decide when and whether to fight. I would actually be in favor of this or #2 over #3, but I'm sure others disagree
2. The FAM has the authority to negotiate peace agreements. He should consult with the President and SMC, but the authority rests on his shoulders. I like this one, too.
3. The FAM must obtain approval from BOTH the President AND the SMC.

As I stated, in my opinion the FAM exists to decide matters of foreign policy and strategy (policy-making) and the SMC exists to decide how to execute those FAM decisions (policy implementation). This is how democracies handle their militaries and it's a good model.

I think you are going too far. 'Or' is quite clear. Your first suggestion is covered by what we have done.

Same problem as the last line with the "or". What if the Senate passes a bill denying the FAM the approval, but the President approves of it? What if it's the other way around? Additionally, does this line mean the FAM gets to decide who to ask? This really needs to be clarified.

Actually, the chain of command for the power of the purse is quite clear. I see nothing to be changed here.

Found another one... Who decides which to ask? HOW do they decide? What if both volunteer different answers? Who decides which one is valid or makes the final decision?

I have to agree with Togas. 'Or' is a perfectly valid expression in logic.

A constitution is not a place for listing "suggestions" to ministers... Giving them the power to establish such deputies is what a constitution does... in a sense, this already implies a suggestion.

This is admittedly an entirely cosmetic complaint

Yes it is. Sorry.

Here it is again... "Senate or President"... This needs to be changed as badly as the others and for the same reasons.

See above.

"Unable to perform his duties" as decided by whom? I would suggest inserting a point that this is as decided by the President ("Hey, I can't do this turnchat") or as decided by either the Court with some explicitly stated criterion (number of days absent, whatever).

This may need consideration.

This line should end with a citation such as "as per Article I, Section 5b" and perhaps be slightly re-worded to accomodate the citation.

I think it works as Togas wrote it. He may look at it though.

Who does the Minister "explicity state" a transferal of power to? I assume the President, but this needs to be stated.

A good point.

A slightly differnt problem, but still related to the use of "or". If the Senate removes a deputy minister (one which various lines above give the minister the exclusive power to hire and fire), what prevents the Minister from just re-hiring their deputy minister who the Senate just fired?

The Court, injunctions, and impeachment proceedings?

Why not just include this is 6b?

I'm sure Togas will look at it.

This line DOES (contrary to my understanding from first reading it) establish something of Senate supremacy in law-making over that of executive orders. However, it REALLY NEEDS to be re-worded to make it less confusing in that regard.

It does the job. The topic is also covered in Article VI. Conflict of laws.

This is an even more critical case where "unable to perform his duties" needs to be clarfied. And if it IS clarfied in another line, THIS LINE needs to cite that line in the text ("as per Article whatever, section whatever").

A good one to be looked at.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Arnelos


As long as this line remains in place (and I believe it should) this kills any notion that only people who sign up on some montly list are "senators", as citizenship (which here is explicitly equated with senatorship) is already established through Article IV, Sections 1-3 in a more liberal manner.

Exactly.

Though this IS vague, the Court can probably use the lines in the old Constitution as a form of legal precedent to decide what "clear" and "unbiased" mean. However, it might be nice to newbie players for you to put those parts of the old constitution into this new one . Having been rather new all too recently myself, I can see how that might help .

I believe we were leaving some polling standard to the Senate, or future amendment if felt needed.

I'm not really partial to either side of the debate on this line... abstain means different things in different legislatures really... those insisting that it means one thing and not the other are wrong. So it depends on what we want abstain to mean HERE on which way we want this.

OK. We have defined it the way we did due to the introduction of the concept of quorum.

Now, Article II, Section 1 just explictly stated that all citizens ARE senators... why on earth would a line so close to it imply that there are citizens who are NOT senators?

No. It said that all citizens except 10 are Senators. Those 10 would be the members of the Executive and the Court. Those 10 may not propose laws. They may vote on them though.

"judicial decisions regarding laws" needs to be changed to "judicial decisions regarding the interpretation of laws" because you don't intend to give the Senate the power to overturn a Court decision regarding the constitutionality of laws.

A good point to look at.

This is inaccurate, given Article I. The Senate is implied to have the ability to pass what I would call non-binding resolutions to request executive action on things executive officers have exclusive authority over... such things do NOT have the same level of authority as other laws the Senate can pass because they are non-binding.

The proposing Senator may say 'non binding...'

I agree with GodKing, this should be the sole power to declare war. You could probably just re-word this to say the Senate must approve of all declarations of war... which clarifies it and makes it similar to the line regarding alliances.


These lines do not clarify whether the Senate has the sole authority to authorize such things or that the Senate must approve of such actions.

Selectively playing with the language could be dangerous. The meaning is clear in my experience in dealing with these things.

The Court article is by far the best-written of all of the articles. My complements to whichever member(s) of the ConCon penned it.

That would be a combination of Togas and Ninot (I think).

And, given Article II, Section 1, a Senator. Someone should hunt to find any references to citizens being different from Senators I might ahve missed in this document and suggest that we get rid of it.

Citizen does not equal Senator. 10 citizens will not be Senators at any given time.

Does the Court already have a precedent for a punishment if this is violated? If not, we should probably explicitly establish what the punishment(s) might be.

The only punishment open to the court would be a decision of censure. Or something like that. Try to get elected when you are carrying that around. If you were elected, you would be impeached.

This is also well laid-out, much like the article about the Court. My complements.

The impeachment amendment was... jdjdjd (and others).

The grounds upon which the Court may make such an injunction should be stated here (perhaps as subsections).

'Injunctions may only be issued for good cause'

The Justices would have to be willing to show that cause, I think.

Geesh... this line should be EXPLICITLY CITED in various cases above where I wondered about whether an executive could simply undo a legislative decision... those lines above still need to be re-worded to accomodate this rule, however.

Many things are being considered for wording.

I agree with GodKing, you need to define "quickpoll" here.

Quick poll has a common law meaning, I believe.

Just to thwart people who find this loop-hole funny, this should state "more than one", not "any two"

Good point.

Under what terms? What time length? As I think GodKing argued... is this not redundant? (any vacant office requires an election to replace it anyhow)

We did this because elections are mandated as to date and duration. This gives the Senate the ability to resolve the problem.

BTW, vacant posts are not polled for. the President appoints someone. The appointment requires Senatorial approval.

Just cite the line in Article I that says the same thing. IN fact, just say that a President so elected must follow the same procedures as laid out in Article I and be done with it .

I think Togas' work suffices here.

As with laws, it would be nice to newbies to provide more clear guidance on what we mean by "clear" and "unbiased". I'm sure there are Court cases and things from the old Con we can use as a guide for writing that .

Under the new Constitution, you can count on the Court maintaining a good and usable reference to appropriate materials.

-------------------------------------------

Ok, enough Civ3dg for now I'm going to go do some other things with my time for now

Thank the g0dz.

But seriously... You made a few good points. However, I would ask you and those who come after you to consider that we on the con con do not have unlimited time to examine and reply to every statement of preference of language usage.

Are you involved? You bet, but there are limits to how much we can absorb and accomodate in this thing. At some point, we all want to be done. Right? To be done we all must accept that some things we want will not be as we want them.

The important bit is that we cover the big issues in a coherent manner. Catching big gaffs is important, yes. Please point them out. But at a certain point we are going to have to ratify this and leave it for the Court to uphold and interpret. I believe the Court, and most people can interpret the word 'or'.

The Court is already upholding and interpreting a much less well thought out CoL. I really hope we don't leave them interpreting that for too much longer.

[ruby_maser]

though I agree that this document will find its true voice only through interpretation and amendment after the ratification process, though it is alot to digest, and though it is long already and can't go on forever, I agree with Arnelos about the use of OR when delegating powers and responsibilites.

These things DO need clarification more than anything else in the document. One thing that should be more obvious than the fact that you ConCons don't like having your precious document dissected is that one thing you never do is share authority. IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA.

It isn't asking much do a little preventive maintenance on this document to insure that such glaring overlaps in power are prevented from becoming serious issues later on. Otherwise it is a great document.

[notyoueither]

Glaring overlap?

What is the problem with making some decisions by a committee of 3, with one of the members having a veto?

That is the effect of the 'or' in many cases.

Honestly, if you find a hole please mention it. But this is getting silly.

[ruby_maser]

committee of 3?

you are talking about "The Senate" and "The President". now if remember my first grade math correctly that is a committee of 2....assuming of course the whole "committee" thing is your idea of an analogy for how a democratic government is set up to check and balance itself.

Now, this may be a stretch for you, if a committee of two disagrees then they have reached a impass because neither has been given the explicit authority to make the final decision and there is no clear majority.

Silly as it may sound... your baby didn't come off the line perfect.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Togas
There's some good suggestions in here of potential loopholes we're going to close up, but .... come on! This level of dissection is self-serving pomposity.

This is not simply "self-serving pomposity" and I take offense to that wording being used in context to myself. I'm honestly just trying to provide some constructive criticism regarding a constitution that will come to affect the entire citizenship of Apolytonia if it passes. Doing that is just as much of an act of civic responsibility as authoring the constitution to begin with and, consequently, both are just as "pompous" if either is.

I would hope that we can all respect each others' involvement in this as a matter of civic responsibility and respect each other as fellow concerned citizens... such rhetoric as the above has no place here.

This is a Constitution not a volumous code of laws, policy, procecure, and definitions. This is a framework document that will be colored in by both the Senate and the Court. This document is already 8+ pages long, which is far too much for any newbie to digest, and people want us to add more to it?

Secondly, how hard is it to figure out what "or" means? I'm baffled by this. If I said, "You have to get permission from John or Harry to go to the party" what does that mean? There's no ambiguity there. Either John OR Harry can say yes. You don't have to ask both, and if one says no, you can ask the other and still go to the party. How much more obvious do you need it to be?

--Togas

Togas,

I was working under the assumption that it could be agreed that ambiguous lines of responsibility was best avoided. Obviously, that assumption was invalid

You actually MEANT for the "or" lines to give the FAM the ability to pick whether he liked the response of one minister or other other better and choose the one he likes... I now understand that that is actually what you meant, but here is where I must very strongly disagree with this on principle.

Most of the cases where this occurs are under the FAM and Domestic Minister. Here are the three main examples:

* The FAM must ask the President OR the SMC to sign a peace agreement.

* The FAM must ask the Senate OR the President before giving away any money.

* The Domestic Minister must ask the Senate OR the President before rushing a project.

The problem with all three of these is precisely the RL example you brought up, Togas. The kid wanting to go to the party can ask both and take the answer he likes... Perhaps you don't have a problem with this, but I'm near certain that I'm not the only one that finds this type of thing very uncomfortable. I'd much rather have a clear line of authority.

For the "Senate or the President" ones, it seems that simply changing the wording slightly and inserting a reference to Article I, Section 7 about the supremacy of Senate laws over Executive decisions. This would mean that in cases of "Senate or the President", the FAM or Domestic Minister would be forced to abide by the Senate's decision if the Senate actually acted on the matter (which is far from certain) and only follow the President if the Senate does NOT act on it. This is workable.

As for the case where the FAM can ask the SMC or the President on when he can end a war, my personal opinion on this is that the FAM should have to:

1. Get the approval of BOTH (not just pick the answer he wants to hear...)
2. Get approval from the President only (delete the SMC from this line)
3. Get approval from the SMC only (delete the President from this line)
4. Delete the entire approval issue from this line and place the decision on the FAM's shoulders.

I personally prefer #4, but any of these four are perfectly workable.

That's all for now... gotta run.

[Togas]

Originally posted by Arnelos
I would hope that we can all respect each others' involvement in this as a matter of civic responsibility and respect each other as fellow concerned citizens... such rhetoric as the above has no place here.

Of course I and the others respect everyone's involvement and we have asked for everyone involvement. Some loopholes and mistakes have been found and we've made a numer of corrections this past week, which is the direct result of the people's involvement.

What bothers me are these long editorial pompous critiques. No rhetoric on my part, I just hate them. I'll admit, this is somewhat due to the fact that I'm the guy who took all of our Con Con ideas down and wrote out the Con, so I'm a bit more sensitive than most, but I don't feel that a 3 page disseration helps me or any of us do our job. It just shows what great attention to detail and legal insight the individual who wrote it has.

Short comments on actual errors that are to the point and include suggestions for revision help us. Long posts about the ambiguity of the use of "or" just annoy me. Sorry. That's just me.

Originally posted by Arnelos
You actually MEANT for the "or" lines to give the FAM the ability to pick whether he liked the response of one minister or other other better and choose the one he likes

Yes. We meant that. See NYE's comment:

What is the problem with making some decisions by a committee of 3, with one of the members having a veto?

That is the effect of the 'or' in many cases.

Get one of two to agree. It's a way to somewhat limit a power, but not put the Minister at the mercy of another Minister or branch. This way the Minister can't run wild, he has a check. But in essence, the check is two other individuals (or the Senate) both disagreeing with him.

--Togas

[ruby_maser]

I suppose this would be workable, but it could easily be a contentious issue if not everybody got their opinion heard about the matter prior to implementation. And in the case of serious splits, could lead to some nasty stepping on toes and interparty politics.

I like it

[DAVOUT]

Togas,

You said : we've made a number of corrections this past week

Would not it be useful to publish a revised version of the New Constitution ?

[Togas]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Would not it be useful to publish a revised version of the New Constitution ?

We will. The latest draft was finished Monday and is circulating via email to the Con Con members at this very moment. Once everyone approves the latest draft we will publish it. We expect that this will be the last draft of the Con prior to a ratification vote, so we're being extra careful with it, making changes from suggestions we've received and also correcting mistakes and ambiguities.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Togas


We will. The latest draft was finished Monday and is circulating via email to the Con Con members at this very moment. Once everyone approves the latest draft we will publish it. We expect that this will be the last draft of the Con prior to a ratification vote, so we're being extra careful with it, making changes from suggestions we've received and also correcting mistakes and ambiguities.

--Togas

Sounds good. Keep up the good work

And even better, that rather effectively will shut me up on the subject for now

[Sheik]

I posted this in the other con thread also but figured it wouldn't hurt to post it here too:

Shouldn't the new constitution have a statue of limitations for bringing cases to the court?

[notyoueither]

I replied in the other thread.

[GodKing]

One thing, if it is to be reposted, I would like the right to comment on it with the idea that if there are issues, that they will be addressed and not just 'vote on this or else'. I know that attitude is not what was intended, but that is how it reads.

Peace.

GK

[Togas]

Everyone has the right to comment on anything, but it needs to be made clear that after this next revision, we're putting it up for a ratification vote.

We're not going to constantly keep retooling it until everyone agrees on it, because everyone is not going to agree on it. Amongst the four of us, we have disagreements, and that's only four people.

If the New Con isn't ratified, we'll have to step back and take a hard look at it and decide if a few more revisions would make it more acceptable. But I have to be honest -- we may also decide to just scrap it. Getting to a finished document that made us all happy took a lot of work and energy. Getting to a document that makes everyone happy may take more work and energy than we're prepared to give, and it may well be impossible to do.

If the New Con is ratified, it will undergo changes through Senate bills and future amendments. If it's just a few things that you don't like in the New Con, amendments and bills might be a more productive way to make changes than to vote against the entire document's passage.

--Togas