SO 2017-64 The 2017 Constitutional Amendment Act on the Administrative Branch

SO 2017-64 The 2017 Constitutional Amendment Act on the Administrative Branch

SEVERAL AMENDMENTS TO OUR CONSTITUTION to further regulate the position of the Founder, the Regional Officials appointed to perform, on the Founder's behalf, administrative as well as technical functions, as well as for other constitutional reasons.

ACKNOWLEDGING that We tried to implement similar amendments with Senate Order 2016-12 ("The Region's Administrative Branch 2016 Constitutional Amendment"), yet that it was not passed into law;

HOWEVER OBSERVING that the Amendments were met with welcome words, and that the only reason it did not pass Parliament, was a lack of quorum among the voting Members, not because of discontent among said Members;

THEREFORE BELIEVING that a second attempt should be made to pass these several Amendments, alongside other such Amendments, which have now been added to this Constitutional Amendment;

NOTING that the reasons mentioned in the preamble of the said Senate Order 2016-12 are equally relevant to this Constitutional Amendment;

BE IT ENACTED by Us, Nassau-Windsor, Founder of Our Region, by and with the advice and consent of Parliament and Cabinet, in this present assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-

Chapter One: General provisions
Article 1
This Act shall be classified as a Constitutional Amendment.

Article 2
This Act may be cited as "[The] 2017 Constitutional Amendment Act on the Administrative Branch".

Chapter Two: Amendments to Article I of the Constitution
Article 3
We move to replace the word "with" stated in Article I, Section A, of Our Constitution by the word "within".

Chapter Three: Amendments with regards to the Administrative Branch
Article 4
We move to create and to add a new Article to the Constitution, to be named "Article V: The Administrative Branch".

Article 5
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 1" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "There shall be an Administrative Branch of governance, which consists of the Founder, the Regional Administrative Officers, and other Administrative Officials."

Article 6
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 2" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "Subsection 1 A Founder is to be elected among from and by the Members of Our Region whenever the previous incumbent ceases-to-exist or freely chooses to resign from that Office. The Office of Founder may not be performed by any other Member than the rightfully elected Member. Subsection 2 The Founder must have an active account in the Region at all times. Subsection 3 There shall be no limitations to the duration of the Founder's term."

Article 7
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 3" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "Subsection 1 The Founder shall be the ultimate authority regarding administrative and technical matters concerning the Region. The Founder shall, however, not have any rights, powers, prvileges, duties, or responsibilities with regards to the in-game character of Our Region withouth holding another position or office. Subsection 2 The Founder may not take part in affairs of governance, unless he holds another position or office than entitles him to do so or unless that would be unreasonable in the way that the Founder would then have fewer options to take part in these matters than any other ordinary member. Subsection 3 The Founder may appoint and dismiss Regional Administrative Officers and Administrative Officials as he pleases. Subsection 4 It shall be proper for the Founder to use and enjoy all powers, privileges, and functions with either an administrative or a technical ground or application. Subsection 5 The Regional Administrative Officers as well as the Administrative Officials shall assist the Founder on his behalf with his duties and responsibilities. The Founder may devolve several specific privileges to do so, yet the said Officers and Officials must abide by the regulations given to them by the Founder. The Founder may overrule his said Officers and Officials."

Article 8
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Secion 4" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "It is the Founder's duty to ensure that the pages connected to Our Region on NationStates, as well as to the Forum, and the DISCORD-channel, run properly to the best of his abilities. Accordingly, he is entitled to update and regulate them."

Article 9
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 5" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "The Fonder may eject and/or ban all those who reside in Our Region on NationStates and all accounts created on Our Forum and DISCORD-channel, when they are violating the general rules of such media in order to perform and function properly. By no means may this power be exercised for in-character reasons whatsoever."

Article 10
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 6" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "The Founder has to comply with and abide by all in-character laws that have the force of rule and are in effect, so long as they do not effect out-of-character matters or change the technical or administrative way the Region is regulated and functions."

Article 11
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 7" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "Subsection 1 The Regional security shall be a reponsibility dually held by the Founder and the Minister of War. The Founder may lock the Region by setting a password in order to guarantee the security of the Region. The Founder may only do this occasionally and temporarily, when he has severe and good reasons to fear for the security of the Region. This power may, under no circumstances whatsoever, be devolved to others. Subsection 2 Contrary to Subsection 1, the power to lock the Region will automatically be devolved to the most senior active Regional Administrative Officer, or when there is no such Officer, to the most senior active Administrative Official, if the Founder is inactive for at least 15 days on all media of the Region."

Article 12
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 8" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "The Administrative Branch may suppress, and if possible remove, messages on the media used by the Region when they are disorderly and in violation of the general rules of a civilised debate or discussion. In-character messages may not be removed or suppressed."

Article 13
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 9" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "The Founder may not use his role as such to abuse powers or privileges."

Article 14
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 10" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "The powers, privileges and duties as mentioned of the Founder may be devolved to Regional Administrative Officers and Administrative Officials unless otherwise stated. The Founder is free to choose how he devolves his powers, privileges and duties."

Article 15
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 11" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "The Founder and the Administrative Branch may use all future and unmentioned privileges and powers to perform their duties for the better of the out-of-character side of the Region, as long as this does not lead to abuse of these privileges or powers."

Article 16
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 12" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "When the Founder ceases-to-exist, his duties, privileges and rights are to be trusted to the President, until another Founder has been elected by regional vote regulated by that Prime Minister or his successor."

Article 17
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 13" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "If at any time the Founder loses his nation in Our Region, other than because of technical issues caused by NationStates, he shall be considered to be ceased-to-exist by default."

Article 18
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 14" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "Because of his administrative and technical role, the Judicial System may not punish the Founder in such a way that he is required to remove his nation from the Region."

Article 19
We move to add the following provision to the Constitution as "Section 15" of the said newly created Article V, which shall have the following text: "If at any time a ceased-to-existed Founder returns to the Region, he shall not have a claim on the office of Founder by default."

Article 20
We move to revoke Article III, Section B, along with all of its subsections, from the Constitution.

Chapter Four: Other Constitutional Amendments
Article 21
We move to amend Article III, Section A of the Constitution so that it will read as follows: "The Executive Branch of the Parliamentary Union of Sovereign States shall consist of the President, Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers."

Friday, 25 August 2017
The Hon. Nassau-Windsor MP LSM

I wish to explicitly mention to my Rt. Hon. friend the Minister for Jurisprudence [Libertarian Democracy] that I could not find your recent telegram with regards to this Constitutional Amendment anymore. If all is right though, you will be able to track it in your box for 'Sent items' on NS. If you can track it and want to do so, just copy-paste it.

Here was my original Telegram:

Spoiler:

Some suggestions:

1) Please bump each subsection down to a new line (like in the original proposal).  It would make the text easier to read.

2) Articles 8 & 9 are slightly concerning.  First of all, since the Discord server (note that it is called a "server" and not a "channel".  The channels are the individual chat rooms")  was established by Act of Parliament, it seems improper to reference it in the Constitution.  What if the DISCORD Act was repealed?  It would be best to generically say "and all other non-NS modes of public communication used for regional purposes" or something similar.

3) Article 8: Also, while I agree that the Founder should have a significant degree of control ("regulation") over the Discord, precedent already exists for Parliament regulating it by establishing the mandatory Channels and Roles.  Since the specific phrasing would apply to these Forums too, I would note that extensive precedent exists for the Parliamentary regulation of the Forums, including within the Citizens' Forum Act (SO#2015-05), the Recruitment Council Chambers Subforum Act (SO#2016-02), the Legislative Archive Act (SO#2016-10), On Judicial Rights and Procedures (SO#2017-14), and the Union Charter of Rights and Freedoms (SO#2017-34), among many, many others.  President also exists for the Parliamentary regulation of the WFE.  This Article needs to be changed to reflect that the Founder has control over these systems where not already regulated by Parliament.  In fact, the blanket delegation of Administrative privileges to the Founder as expressed in this proposal would potentially nullify dozens of important Acts of Parliament.

4) Article 9: Omit the phrase "all those".  It sounds like the Founder could ban everyone for one person's infraction.

5) Article 9: Only allow immediate banning if the nation in question poses an imminent threat.  Otherwise, we have a Judicial Branch.

6) Article 10: No.  Parliament has every right to control OOC matters.  There exists myriad legislation where Parliament already does this.  See suggestion 3.

7) Article 12: What if an IC post violates the rules?  Like, what if someone intentionally wrote an RP post that not-so-subtly refers to an OOC feud, and incorporates a character flaming on behalf of the posting nation?  Also, if posts are deleted, there is no evidence to present at a potential Trial.  Suppression I am okay with, but removing evidence would remove any chance at prosecution and lawful legal remedy.

8) Article 16: Why the President?  Why not the Prime Minister who logistically receives all powers upon CTE?

9) Article 20: Unless I am skipping something, this proposal does not re-write all of the points in Article III Section B of the Constitution.  Specifically, Subsections 1, 2, and 4.

Also, considering the pending SO#2017-63 (the proposal to convene a Constitutional Convention), would you withdraw this Proposal and submit it to the Convention for the comprehensive Amendment, or do you intend to pass it standalone?

To reiterate my Rt. Hon. friend [Libertarian Democracy]'s final point, I would recommend that this amendment be further discussed and debated by the ECC which is being created for that purpose exactly.

Also, to build on LibDem's point 7, removing posts on the forum is something I cannot support at all, since there is no way to recover them afterwards (the only situation where I would condone such a drastic destruction of what I consider to be valuable records is if invaders spam parts of the forum with offensive or cluttering topics/posts and the like).