The executive and a federal structure - an idea

[Ashcroft Burnham]

Incidentally, if the system of local governance that I explain in my original post were to be compassed by means of a constitutional amendment, rather than an ordinary Act of the Representative Assembly, it would need to have rather a different structure: it would, after all, be most unweidly to have to make a constitutional amendment for each new sim or franchulate added.

Something like this would be required:

[b:424ndilt]Constitutional Amendment (Local Governance) Bill

1. The title of the Neufreistadt Constitution shall hereafter be, "The Constitution of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators".

2. Any reference in any Act of the Representative Assembly passed before the date on which this Act comes into force to "Neufreistadt" shall be taken to be a reference to the Confederation of Democratic Simulators.

3. Section 2 above shall not apply to those references to "Neufreistadt" set out in Schedule 1 hereto.

4. Article VI of the Constiution shall be replaced with the following text:

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[i:424ndilt]Article VI - Citizenship

1. A citizen of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators is a resident of SecondLife who has been granted title to any land by the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, and who holds title under the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, for as long as he or she holds such title.

2. Without prejudice to any power of any institution of government to subsitute, or empower another person, institution or group to substitute, any land held by any citizen for any other land the holding of which would continue to entitle the person whose land has been substituted to be a citizen of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, no citizen shall be deprived of citizenship in the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, nor shall any person, whether a citizen or not, be banished from any public land in the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, without trial in accordance with law, or consent not to be so tried.

3. Section 2 above is subject to any rule of law whereby a person is deemed to have consented not to be tried by having failed within reasonable time to respond or respond fully to any notice sent to that person in respect of any such prospective trial.

4. Any citizen may cease to become a citizen by submitting a notice in a form that may be prescribed by any Act of the Representative Assembly (or, if no such form is specified, by notifying the Guild-Meister) one week in advance of the date on which that person is to cease to be a citizen.[/i:424ndilt]

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5. There shall be added to the end of the Constitution (but before the table of amendments) the following section:

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[i:424ndilt]Article VII - Local Government

1. For each distinct locality governed by the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, there shall be a local governer.

2. For the purposes of Section 1 above, "distinct locality" is either an individual island, a contiguous group of islands that share an overall theme, or such an area of land on the mainland as shall be specified by any Act of the Representative Assembly.

3. The title of each local governer shall be that stated by any Act of the Representative Assembly, or, in the absence of such statement, "Governer".

4. The governer of each locality shall be appointed by a simple majority vote in the Representative Assembly from a list of citizens who nominate themselves according to any procedure prescribed by the Representative Assembly, or, absent such prescription, by notifying the leader of the Representative Assembly at least seven days prior to the date of the meeting of the Representative Assembly on which the governer is due to be appointed.

5. The governer of each locality shall hold office until the term of the Representative Assembly during which he or she was appointed expires, or until resignation or successful impeachment, whichever is sooner.

6. The governers of each locality shall, subject to any contrary provision in any enactment of the Representative Assembly or the Constitution, have the power:

(a) to determine the use to which any and all land in the locality of which he or she is the governer shall be put;

(b) to expend monies held by the office of the governer for each locality respectively for the administration and management of public facilities (including, but not limited to, roadways, signage, public buildings, public events and similar), and to discharge any other duties or powers of the office of the governer conferred bythe Constitution or any other Act of the Representive Assembly;

(c) to publicise the locality of which he or she is the governer;

(d) to appoint and pay deputies or other staff to hold office in the office of the governer in the locality in which he or she is the governer to facilitate the discharge of any function of the office of the governer in the locality in which he or she is the governer conferred by the Constitution or any Act of the Representive Assembly;

(e) subject to the payment of adequate compensation to any citizen or citizens thereby affected, reclaim or swap any land held by any citizen of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators who resides in the locality in which he or she is the governeror the purposes of discharging any function of the office of the governer of the locality in which he or she is the governer conferred by the Constitution or any Act of the Representive Assembly, provided always that no citizen of the any locality shall not be caused to have no holding in that locality at all thereby;

(f) to make regulations pursuant to the above; and

(g) to enforce such regulations in accordance with law.

7. Upon written request from any member of the Representative Assembly, the governer of any locality shall attend the next meeting of the Representative Assembly that is at least five clear days after the request was sent, and fully and truthfully answer there any questions posed by any member of the Representative Assembly about any aspect of the affairs of the locality of which he or she is the governer or of the administration of the office of that governer.

8. Any regulations made by any governer pursuant to Section 6 (f) above shall be taken to repeal any inconsistent provision in any of the Acts of the Representative Assembly set out in Schedule 2 hereto. [/i:424ndilt]

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6. The title of the governer of Neufreistadt shall be the "Burgermeister of Neufreistadt".

Schedule 1

[i:424ndilt][A list of Acts of the Representative Assembly that make reference to "Neufreistadt" where it is not desirable that the reference be changed to the "Confederation of Democratic Simulators" because the Acts are intended to have local effect, for example, planning legislation][/i:424ndilt]

Schedule 2

[i:424ndilt][A list of Acts of the Representative Assembly that deal with the minutia of planning regulations in Neufriestadt][/i:424ndilt][/b:424ndilt]

As can be seen, the constitutional amendment version is more complex and wider-reaching than the standard Act version; against it could be said that it is more complicated, and hard to implement quickly, but in its favour could be argued that it deals with constitutional reform (in the wider sense of "constitutional" discussed above) more comprehensively than peacemeal Acts of the Representative Assembly.

I should be interested in the views of those who favour a constitutional amendment to the mechanism that I propose above.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

Gwyneth: your post was most interesting and informative, and sets out cogent arguments in favour of a more generalised constitutional reform.

It also seems to be a good argument for having a standardised library of precedent-setting decisions of the Scientific Council, published alongside the constitution, and for re-writing much of the constitution to make the powers of each institution far more determinate.

I do not fully agree, however, with the proposition that the [b:2jsw8ruv]Burgermeister of Neufreistadt Bill[/b:2jsw8ruv], as presently drafted, exceeds the Representative Assembly's constitutional powers, even given the precedent that you cited with respect to the Financial Committee.

Dealing first with the precendents of the Scientifc Conucil, it seems that the proposition that they establish is that the Representative Assembly does not have the power to seek to advise the Guild how it should conduct financial affairs because the Guild's authority on financial affairs must be supreme. From that, it follows that the assignment of a budget [i:2jsw8ruv]to[/i:2jsw8ruv] the Burgermeister of Neufreistadt would require assent of the Guild, as with any other revenue bill. If such consent was not forthcoming, then the only option would be a constitutional amendment to divest the Guild of that power.

However, a budget is not part of the irreducable minimum of constituents for the Burgermeister: a Burgermeister could discharge many of her or his functions without expending money at all. The office would be less effective, but not non-existent.

As to the point about historical precedents, I addressed the point above: even a flawed text that does not represent fully the intentions of those who draft it must have status above mere historical practice, however good the reasons that that pratice has emerged, and however close that that practice is to the imprefectly expressed intentions of the authors of the text, because of the inherent function that having something written in an official text serves. Your arguments might suffice to show that a change of [i:2jsw8ruv]law[/i:2jsw8ruv] is required to create a Burgermeister, but I do not agree that they suffice to show that a change to the text of the [i:2jsw8ruv]constitution[/i:2jsw8ruv] is required.

[i:2jsw8ruv]Edit[/i:2jsw8ruv]: put simply, it is hard to see why a change to the [i:2jsw8ruv]text[/i:2jsw8ruv] of the constitution is necessary to pass the [b:2jsw8ruv]Burgermeister of Neufreistadt Act[/b:2jsw8ruv], when it is not, on your argument, the text itself that is inconsistent with that [b:2jsw8ruv]Act[/b:2jsw8ruv].

I should, however, be most interested on any comments that you have on my constitutional amendment version suggested above. I have been interested in legislative drafting for some time, and would be interested in helping to draft legislation and constitutional amendments to deal with other problems, too.