Thank you to Calli and Sudane for your thoughts on the proposed legislation.
On the issue of payment for parcels, I am happy to go with a free parcel or a minimal fee. I have not been notified by anybody that this law will affect them and I'm only aware of one remaining 'partner' citizen who will be affected by this law change. I suggest we debate this in RA and choose one of the alternate wordings in the bill below.
Again, on priority for civil service positions, I'm happy to delete paragraph 9 in Bill #1 below if the RA wants to.
I think that Calli's redrafted Bill #2 is a big improvement on the previous drafting so I suggest we use this. I've updated paragraph 1 to include a variation for these elections if the Land Scanner upgrade is not ready in time. This follows from Sudane's post on the topic.
Bill #1: Citizenship Establishment
Preamble
CDSL 13-10, Citizenship Bill, attempted to define more precisely the link between citizenship and land established as a fundamental principle in the Constitution of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) in its Article VI – Citizenship, by establishing guidelines on how to incorporate the citizenship grant made to citizens who used previous laws to become citizens without a direct relationship with land ownership.
However, in subsequent events, it was made clear that the extraordinary amount of legislation covering all possible cases for citizenship complicated the establishment of an official List of Citizens as per the requirements of NL 5-15, Citizen Information Act. As a result, this list is rarely updated and requires individual validation of each and every member on the list.
Therefore, this bill provides a new and easier method to validate citizenship by keeping to the guidelines set forth in the Constitution.
1. "Granting title to land" is henceforward defined as being listed as the sole proprietor of a parcel of land, as shown by the About Land tool (or whatever technological feature of the official Second Life Viewer shows the ownership of a parcel).
2. Citizens shall be entitled to vote in CDS elections and/or stand for office if, on the date set by the Scientific Council in accordance with the Constitution for this purpose, they own at least one parcel of land and are current in their tier payments for at least one parcel. A citizen shall be an individual avatar whose name appears on both the Hippo list as being current in the tier payments and on a list of current parcel owners.
3. Private land can optionally be set (but not deeded) to any group, but that does not entitle any member of the group a grant to the title of the land. Mistakenly deeded land should be reverted, optionally with the assistance from the Estate Owner or any similar role with the appropriate land management powers.
4. Public land, or land owned by organisations incorporated in the CDS, can be deeded to a group. As per the previous article, this does not grant members of the group any title to the land.
5. "Sponsored locations" in the terms previously defined under CDSL 13-10 are abolished. Land set or deeded to groups under the provision of CDSL 13-10 will revert to public land status and claimed by the appropriate land management group set by Government for the region.
6. Citizenship derived solely through membership of a group or through being the partner of a CDS citizen is hereby abolished.
7. Membership in any "waiting list" for acquisition of a first parcel in the CDS, to be sold by Government as soon as new regions or parcels are opened for sale, does not confer citizenship status to those members, since it does not effectively confer grant title to land.
8. Any citizen that loses their citizenship status due to the passage of this bill is encouraged to purchase a parcel of land in the CDS and shall be entitled to [a waiver of the land ownership/transfer cost/a discount purchase price of $L/sq m], only in the case that the parcel bought is the property of the CDS Government, and only for the first parcel purchased under this provision. Any citizen purchasing a parcel through the provisions of this Act will only be permitted to sell the parcel back to the CDS Government for the price paid.
9. [Citizens losing their status due to the revocation of CDSL 13-10, when buying their first parcel of land in the CDS, will have priority in applying for any paid Civil Service role (under the provision of NL 5-7, Civil Service Act, and subsequent legislation), in case any such new role is announced or an existing role has a vacancy, provided that the candidate has the adequate competences and skills required to apply for that role.]
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Bill #2: Citizenship membership publication for election purposes
Preamble
It is the law of the CDS that citizens must hold the title to their land for more than 28 days, and have tier payed in full to qualify to vote or to run for office. However, due to the complexities of the electoral calendar, the validation of that requirement is unnecessarily complicated.
The Citizen List shall be the certified list of CDS citizens eligible to run for office or vote in CDS Elections. The Citizen List will be created in the following manner:
1. At 12 noon on the dates designated by the Scientific Council, the Estate Manager or his or her designate, will generate both a Hippo list of tier payors and a Land Scanner list of parcel owners. They will then compare these two lists to determine that a given name appears on both lists, and that that given name is current in at least one parcel tier payment. The Estate Manager or his or her designate will use these lists to create one list of the citizens who are qualified to run for office or vote, the Citizen List. (In the event that the upgrade to the Land Scanner is not available in time for the generation of the Citizen List for the June 2012 elections, the Hippo List alone will be used).
2. Within 24 hours this List will be delivered to the Chancellor, who will publish the List on the CDS Forums, by notecard to the SL group 'CDS', by notecard available at the Praetorium and any other public location the Chancellor may choose, and on the CDS web portal.
3. Only those citizens whose names appear on the published Citizen List may run for office or vote in the CDS elections.
4. Any citizen may challenge the inclusion or omission of an avatar on the Citizen List by petitioning the Scientific Council. Any such petition challenging the Citizen List must be received by the Dean of the SC no later than midnight, 21 days after that Citizen List is published. The SC will make every effort to resolve such challenges within 7 days, so that nominations and elections can proceed with an accurate Citizen List.
5. This bill revokes NL 5-17, Census Scheduling Act. The number of seats in the Representative Assembly shall be calculated on the day the Citizen List is published for the express purpose of determining citizen eligibility to vote.
6. This bill applies to all elections and by-elections of Government members, representatives, or any official polling act called by any of the Government Branches (such as referenda or public consultation) that may have legislative power.
7. This bill does not revoke any other right of citizens, specifically NL 5-21, Citizen Involvement Act, or any public contest without the force of legislative power, such as proposing a new theme for an upcoming region to be publicly opened, redesigning the CDS official presence, or similar non-legislative acts.
