Note: most of the procedural and structural elements of this document have been moved into Plan 11. Please see Plan 11. This document should now be conceived of as a "module" that can be added to Plan 11 in the case of a government.

Note: this document is under construction! See the introduction.

It is not even a finished draft yet, just parts of a draft interspered with notes. Note: this draft is out of date! I plan to change many of the provisions, as indicated in the separate notes page.

Draft text of constitution

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Rights
3. Organizational structure of government
4. Details

Introduction

Capitalized words are those which have a special meaning. Definitions of these words, and others, may be found in the glossary.

Summary

~: This document defines, +limits+, and structures the State

~: The legislature +makes the laws+ and sets policy.

+: The Government, which is administered by the CEO, carries out policy, with the exception of military and foreign policy, which is carried out by the Foreign Minister. The Prime Minister is appointed by the Senate, and the Foreign Minister by the Board of Foreign Affairs.

~: The Tribunes investigate, with the aim of checking and restraining +both the State as a whole, and also+ powerful elements within the State.

The section Rights and Principals sets fundamental limits on the power of the State.

Rights and Principals

Major Principals

1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
2. In any case in which there is a question of the interpretation of this Constitution, whichever interpretation that most limits the power of the State shall be deemed the correct one.

Basic rights

These are accorded to all people, citizens and non-citizens1.

Basic rights are always negative rights, meaning that they could be fulfilled without placing any obligation upon any private individual, except for an obligation NOT to do certain things. However, it is the primary function of government to protect the basic rights of citizens.

todo: some of these rights concern fair process, are they negative rights? are they basic rights? must basic rights be able to be fulfilled in the absence of the existence of any government?

1. Not to be killed2.
2. Not to be deprived of liberty3.
3. Not to be deprived of security of person4.
4. Not to be one held in slavery or servitude5
5. Not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 6
6. To be recognized everywhere as a person before the law. 7
7. Equality before the law. All people are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. 8
8. Not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. 9
9. Entitlement to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. 10
10. If charged with a penal offence, the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. 11
11. Not to be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed. 12
12. Privacy 13
13. Freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. 14
14. Freedom of movement and residence15
15. To leave any country, including hir own, and to return to hir country.16
16. Religion17
17. Freedom of peaceful assembly and association. 18
18. Not to be compelled to belong to an association, or to any group of associations 19
19. No unnecessary compulsion
20. To take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives20
21. Equal access to the services of public service21
22. Non-interference with an individual's body, and non-interference with the control of an individual over their own body.

(todo: finish looking at other lists of rights and pick the ones i agree with)

1. Freedom of speech, both public and private
2. There can be no crime except when the victim of the crime is other than the perpetrator.
3. The citizens have the right to Peaceably Assemble.
4. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
   1. The government must have a warrant issued by a judge, specifically targetted (todo), before searching or surveilling anything that the public is not permitted to search or surveil.
5. No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
6. In all criminal prosecutions of individual people, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
7. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States except by another jury.
8. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Civil Rights

1. Each citizen who is not a government official, or attempting to be a government official, has the right to absolute Freedom of Speech.
   1. Defined as the freedom to communicate any linguistic or informational content at will.
   2. This does not indicate a freedom to spend an arbitrarily large amount of money, or exert an arbitrarily large amount of power, to broadcast one's speech, however. The government shall have the power to regulate the broadcasting of the speech of the powerful provided that such regulation:
      1. Does not regulate the content of the speech
      2. Is applied equally to the government itself
      3. Is restricted to furthering the goal of Equality of Broadcast
      4. Does not restrict any individual's ability to broadcast their speech below the ability that the typical person has.
      5. Does not restrict any individual's ability to broadcast their speech below the ability that the typical person would have in the absence of all such regulation.
      6. Does not restrict any individual's ability to broadcast their speech below the ability that any government high official, or group of government high officials, has.
2. There shall be Freedom of the Press.
   1. As above, this is defined in terms of content, not broadcast rights.
3. Each citizen has the right to Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances.
4. The State may not establish religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, or distinguish between religions.
   1. The State may not give special benefits to religious or religious organizations, in particular, or as a class.
   2. Church and State shall be strictly separated.
   3. If ceremonies and statuses shall be found to have religious significance, then they shall not be performed, administered or recognized by the State, although a secular replacement may be made. For example, if marriage shall be found to have religious significant, it shall not recognized by the state, instead being replaced by civil union.22
5. No soldier or military apparatus or supply shall be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner and the occupants, except as prescribed by law during a Condition of Major War.
6. Martial Law may not last longer than 6 months, and may not be reimposed without a period of at least one year elapsing. Each citizen has the solemn duty to violently rebel against the State if this most important time limit is exceeded. No citizen shall be punished for rebellion in such a case.
7. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
   1. As circumstances change the courts are empowered to decide that the people hold other rights not herein enumerated, if they consider such rights to have been implicitly assumed. The courts shall not have the power to modify the text of this Constitution, but absent a subsequent amendment to this Constitution restricting such rights, these Found Rights shall have the force of law. However, when possible, the courts are encouraged to use their power of Forced Clarification in these circumstances.
   2. The previous paragraph shall not be taken to mean that no rights exist except for the union of those enumerated here and those which the courts have enumerated as Found Rights. There may be other rights not yet enumerated in either place.
8. The powers not delegated to the State by the Constitution are reserved to the people.
9. Self-incriminating evidence may not be used at trial.
10. Coerced statements may not be used at trial.
11. Basic and Civil Rights take effect not only in places where the State holds sovereignty, but in addition, they take effect any place or situation where/when the State exercises effective control.
12. The right for any adult citizen not to be educated against their will23.
13. The right to reasonably verify the identity and authorization of any agent of the government before following their instructions or yielding to arrest.
14. The right to inspect, copy, test, and discuss the design of any technology to be used for voting, including the blueprints of hardware and the source code of software.
15. The right to purchase, inspect, and dismantle, after the fact, any technology actually used in voting, both software and hardware. The price of purchasing the technology shall be no more than the cost of replacing it. No voting technology shall be destroyed or tampered with for 60 days after the results of an election have been announced, nor after this time if anyone has indicated their intent to purchase the technology. If multiple parties want to purchase the same hardware, they shall negotiate amongst themselves how to form a collective organization for the purpose of inspecting it, and if negotiation fails, the courts, in response to the plea of the parties, shall lay down a fair procedure permitting as much as possible all of the parties to inspect the equipment at once, in full view of each other, in the ways that they desire.
16. At all times a list of every person held in custody of the government, with a lag of at most 1 week, is to be publically available. Attached to each prisoner's name shall be a contact person, who is a government official to whom any citizen may submit requests for information or requests for communication with the prisoner. Except with the consent of a judge, all such requests shall be granted. The contact person shall be privy to the current location and disposition of the prisoner and shall hirself be authorized to meet with or communicate with the prisoner at any time according to their own judgement.
17. No employee shall be retaliated against by a current or future potential employer for communicating with any entity, or for the content of such communication.
18. No employee shall be retaliated against by a current or future potential employer for participation in an employee union.
19. A naturalized citizen shall not be distinguished by the law from a citizen-by-birth.

todo: check out

US Bill of Rights (again) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Declaration_of_Rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights UN declaration of rights the rights that were to go into the EU constitution magna carta (again) petition of rights, etc magnacartaplus site various constititutions german civil code french civil code

Enumerated powers of government

Items not on these lists are outside the government's power. Nothing on these lists shall empower the government to violate the basic rights of any person or the civil rights of citizens. The government may only use these powers when directed to do so by the Legislature using the procedures described in this Constitution, and may only use them as the Legislature directs.

Powers possessed exclusively by the government

1. Use of violence or imprisonment to enforce the law.
2. Declare and conduct war.
3. Temporarily suspend procedures and take special measures to prevent and ameliorate disasters, but only according to the section on Emergency Provisions, below.
4. Levy compulsory taxes.

These powers may be delegated but only to franchise governments.

Other powers possessed by the government

These powers may be exercised by anyone except as restricted by statue24.

1. Maintain a standing military.
2. Regulate commerce.
3. Educate the people.
4. Police the people.
5. Print money.
6. Charter and regulate corporations, including the punishment or dissolution of corporations that become too powerful (antitrust).
7. Fund social welfare and public works.
8. Maintain relations with external entities.

Obligations of government

In descending order of priority.

1. Not to infringe the basic rights of any person25
2. Not to infringe the civil rights of any citizen
3. To affirmatively protect the basic rights of every person to the greatest extent possible26
4. To affirmatively protect the civil rights of every citizen to the greatest extent possible
5. To affirmatively provide the civil rights of every citizen to the greatest extent possible27
6. To execute the will of the people28.

More principals may be found in the Details section.

Organizational structure of government

The State consists of the following entities:

• Electorate
• Legislature ...
• Government
  • Prime minister
  • Foreign minister
  • Cabinet
  • Civil service
  • Military
• Tribune

Electorate

All sovereign power rests in the electorate. The electorate is the head of the state.

The Legislature is the supreme authority of the government, and has the power to overrule the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister on any decision, or to directly issue any order that they can issue.

Voting thresholds

The voting threshold for bills in both houses is 60%, except as specified below29 30.

31:

• Increase government power
• Increase government spending
• Reduce individual liberties
• Increase individual obligations

The voting threshold for bills solely composed of provisions which do not do any of the above, and which each do one or more of the following, is 50%32:

• Reduce government power
• Decrease government spending
• Increase individual liberties
• Decrease individual obligations

Lying under oath to a Tribune or hir agent is a felony.

a) s/he (or they, if multiple Judges) are convicted of a felony (s/he or they cannot preside over hir or their own case), or determined by the courts to be mentally incompetent for medical reasons

The duty of the Supreme Court is threefold:

1) Interpret the law 2) Guard the people against the government' 3) Guard individuals against the majority

• The law produces an unjust and unintentional result33.

Military

(todo: intro?)

The commander-in-chief of the military is normally the Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, the Legislature is the supreme authority in military matters, and may directly issue orders, organize the military, etc, over the objections and without the involvement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.\footnote{The Legislature therefore holds the position designated as "commander-in-chief" in some countries. The point is that, basically, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is the C-in-C, except that I don't want a situation like in the U.S.A. to occur, where some factions hold that the legislature has no authority to override the President in military matters, because he is "commander-in-chief".}

The Legislature may not appropriate or promise to appropriate funding for the military more than two years in advance.

Any military officer who was at the top of the military chain of command shall henceforth be barred from life as serving as a High Official outside the military.

"At the top of the chain of command" means that they did not have any immediate superior who was a military official, or that their immediate superior was either the Foreign Minister or the Prime Minister. In the case that a group of military officers had each other as immediate superiors, so that no "top" of the chain of command can be found using the criteria just given, then all of them are considered to be at the "top of the chain of command".

Provinces

Provinces are autonomous governments with control over geographical territories.

A pair of provincial governments may by mutual agreement reallocate territory between them. Provinces may choose to split themselves. Provinces may merge by mutual consent.

The Legislature, by a 2/3 vote, may reallocate territories between the provinchial governments, with the consent of 2/3 of citizens in the territory being reallocated.

(todo: see requirements on regional shape elsewhere)

(todo: merge this section with the franchise government section)

Provinces have a right to maintain standing militias\footnote{Some people believe that the stability of the U.S. system is partly due to its federal structure. So I'd like to preserve that, while getting rid of the gerrymandering that takes place when you allow the provinchial governments to actually have an equal vote in some part of the legislature.}.

These militias may possess any sort of weapons and do any sort of exercises that the national military may possess or do. However, the Law may limit what sort of weapons may be acquired, how they may be used, and what sort of safeguards, both physical and procedural, must be adhered to regarding weapons, provided that these laws apply to the national military to the same degree as the provinchial militias, and provided that all decision-making, authorization, and certification for the militias is in the hands of the provinchial government, not the national government.

The autonomy of provinces and their right to maintain militias are not delegated rights stemming from the central State.

Provinchial governments must be democracies controlled by the citizens over which they are given power, and this control must be divided between those citizens in a fair and universal way. Provinchial governments must not infringe the basic rights of any person, or the civil rights of citizens.

Provinchial governments do not participate in the federal legislative process.

Each area of territory must be part of a province. There shall be at least 12 provinces34>

Any area may secede from its province, thereby forming a new province, by the same procedure for seceding from the State (outlined in the section "secession"). Secession from a province is a separate question from secession from the State.

Details

Contents of this section

1. Details relating to the Introduction
2. Details relating to the Organizational structure of government
3. Glossary

Minor principals

1. The purpose of the State.
   1. The primary purpose of the State is to preserve the freedom and basic rights of its citizens by providing an organization in which they can protect themselves from outside threats, as well as from each other.
   2. The secondary purpose of the State is to promulgate regulations and large-scale projects to serve the common interests of its citizens.
   3. The tertiary purpose of the State is to promote the rights and well-being of all people.
2. None of the following are within the purposes of the State:
   1. To sustain itself. The State is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
   2. To control the life of the nation.
   3. Glory (either of the people or of the State or of any part or official of the State).
   4. To set the goals of the people.
   5. To protect any individual from hirself.
   6. To implement the will of the majority, when that will is unjust or morally wrong.
3. Egalitarianism. In order to protect the people from each other, it is desirable to minimize concentrations of power.
4. Fairness. A procedure that treats all entities equally often ends up benefiting the strong more than the weak. It is sometimes necessary to protect the weak more than the strong, when this can be done without injuring the rights of the strong35.
   1. This principal should not be interpreted to permit attacks on the powerful in the guise of defending the weak. The powerful may be restrained only in proportion to their power, and the effect of such restraints should not be to render them even weaker than the weak.36
5. When this Constitution gives a right or privilage to people, that is not to be construed as giving that right or privilage to corporations. Corporations may be given rights by statue. However, when it is not possible to fairly uphold or to balance the rights of both corporations and humans, corporate rights are inferior to the rights of humans.
6. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government37
7. Elections for representatives shall be38:
   1. periodic
   2. genuine
   3. with universal sufferage
      1. except possibly for the exclusion of unqualified voters, provided that this exclusion be fair, and that each person so excluded has an fair and feasible ongoing opportunity to become qualified without making significant sacrifices.
   4. with strictly equal suffrage
      1. with the same exception as for universal sufferage
   5. shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
8. Recognizing the possibility that technology may extend human lifespan, State officials may not be appointed for life. The maximum duration of any state appointment is 30 years39.
9. All officials shall have term limits. The limits shall not exceed 30 years.
10. Should laws conflict, the following is the order of precedence of law: Constitution > Found Right > Treaty > Statute > Regulation.
    1. The entire text of this Constitution is considered to be law, including Rights and Principals.
11. Computation should not be considered to be free. It is not fair to force ordinary individuals to do large amounts of computation to retain their rights.40 41
12. No ex post facto law may be passed, and no one may be prosecuted or convicted for crimes which were not illegal at the time that they were committed.
13. No collective punishment.
    1. This includes punishment of some person for the crimes of a family member.
    2. This does not impair the punishment of a collective entity such as a corporation, or the punishment of individuals for actions taken as officers of that entity.
14. The courts may not force individuals to answer questions that may infringe upon their privacy, except as the law explicitly and specifically permits.
    1. Furthermore, courts may not punish individuals for refusing to answer questions that may infringe upon their privacy, except as the law explicitly and specifically permits.
15. No cruel or unusual punishments
16. Each government entity with the authority to collect domestic non-public information or with the authority to apply coercion domestically shall be classified as a "domestic agency". Government entities with the authority to collect foreign non-public information or with the authority to apply coercion to foreign entities shall be classified as a "foreign agency". The law shall contain all of:

• a set of restrictions for the domestic collection of non-public information
• a set of restrictions for the foreign collection of non-public information
• a set of restrictions for the domestic application of coercion
• a set of restrictions for the foreign application of coercion

No agency may be both domestic and foreign at the same time. No single person may be employed by both a domestic and a foreign agency except as explicitly specified in the law 42.

1. No agent provocateurs
2. The State shall do nothing to make the act of voting undesirable43