Proposed SC Affirmation Act revision and proposed consitutio

[Callipygian]

On behalf of the committee given the task of working on SC reform, I am posting the revised proposals that the committee has developed. I would like to thank Delia, Beathan, Pat and Sudane for the work involved in what we have accomplished so far. While all members of the committee are not totally satisfied with all parts of the proposal (welcome to democracy in action , there is enough consensus to present the revisions to the RA.

At the last RA Pat submitted an Act and an amendment to the Constitution; the revised text of the Act is as follows:

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Scientific Council Affirmation Procedures Act

Preamble

This Act clarifies the way in which the Representative Assembly will provide a vote of confidence on candidates to the Scientific Council. The intention is that the SC, candidates for the SC and the RA will work together cooperatively to interview candidate SC members at the earliest opportunity and affirm (or deny) the appointment.


NL 4-8 Scientific Council Affirmation Procedures Act is repealed.

• When a vacancy occurs on the SC, the Chair will announce that a vacancy is pending in the Forums and CDS group notices, and will specify a timeframe for external nominations to be submitted. Any citizen may put their own name forward for consideration, or may nominate any other citizen. The Chair and other members of the SC may also identify suitable nominees.
  
  The SC will review all nominations to ensure that nominees meet the posted qualifications for SC membership.
  All nominees with the required qualifications will be interviewed by the SC and will be accepted as an SC candidate by a simple majority vote.
  
  In the event of multiple candidates, the candidate put forward to the RA will be selected by a blind draw. The Chair of the SC will provide the LRA with the name of the candidate within 24 hours of the vote or of the blind draw.
  
  The LRA will invite the candidate to appear at the next meeting of the RA to be interviewed in regards to their perceived likelihood to uphold the Constitution, and to receive a vote of confidence from the RA. RA members are expected to consider any candidate based on their ability to perform the duties of an SC member, not on any personal friendship or enmity. RA members will give a brief rationale for their vote and the candidate will be considered confirmed by a simple majority.
  
  If the candidate is unable to attend the next meeting of the RA he or she will provide the LRA with a selection of dates and times that they are available to attend a future RA meeting, and both the candidate and the LRA will make every effort to schedule the candidate’s appearance as soon as possible.
  
  If the candidate fails to appear at the next RA meeting, or a meeting held on an agreed date and time within 60 days of the SC meeting that approved their candidacy, their candidacy will be considered withdrawn. If the RA, due to its own failure to be quorate or to hold a meeting on an agreed date and time to interview the candidate, fails to interview the candidate at a public RA meeting, within 60 days of the SC meeting that approved the candidacy, the candidate will be considered confirmed.
  
  During the 60 day period, or until the RA vote of confidence is held, the candidate will attend SC meetings and will be permitted to contribute their opinions and expertise, but will not be permitted to vote.

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The revised proposal for amending the Constitution is as follows:

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Article III – The Philosophic Branch

Section 1 – The Scientific Council

The Scientific Council (SC) is a self-selected meritocracy.
The specific role of the SC is to hold all branches of government true to the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CDS Code of Laws and the SL ToS.

The SC carries out its role by performing the following services:

-Review of all laws and amendments to the Constitution to ensure that such laws or amendments do not contravene the Constitution, the founding documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CDS Code of Laws and the SL ToS

-Act as a neutral body to resolve disputes between citizens and their government, by hearing appeals from citizens that challenge the decisions or actions of the RA or any member of the Executive, in carrying out their duties as defined by the Laws and Constitution of the CDS.

-Administer the CDS election process by accepting and publicizing the names of candidates, hearing challenges to the official Citizens List or List of Candidates, submitting the official Lists of Candidates and Citizens to the manager of the election software, placing and removing the polling stations at the designated locations and times, receiving and ratifying the results of the election and publicizing these results.

-Moderate the CDS Forums to ensure that content meets the ToS of the Forums.


Section 2 – The Scientific Council Body

The Scientific Council shall regularly consist of 5 members, all of equal standing and holding a single vote. SC members will be selected based on demonstrated skill and desire to uphold the constitution without bias and will serve for a term of up to 3 years, excluding any time the member is inactive due to a requested leave of absence. The Chair of the SC may, at his or her discretion nominate additional members , to a maximum of 7, to accommodate requested leaves of absence of sitting SC members.


Section 3 – The Scientific Council Chair

The SC shall elect one member to act as Chair by simple majority vote. Election of the Chair will take place once per year, in July.

Section 4 – Proceedings

The SC will convene at least once per month. The SC may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior and with the concurrence of two-thirds expel a member from a session.


Section 5 – Journal

The SC shall keep and publish a journal of its proceedings in the form of a transcript. All individual votes of the members of the SC on any question shall always be included, along with a statement regarding their personal philosophy on a given vote.


Section 6 – Powers of the SC

Members of the SC shall ratify bills passed by the Representative Assembly by simple majority vote.

The SC may veto or resubmit a bill or constitutional amendment if it is in violation of any of the founding or constitutional documents, the Code of Laws or the UDHR.


The Scientific Council may veto a revenue bill or resubmit a modified revenue bill for vote.

The SC may seek impeachment of members of the Representative branch for violating the constitution or acting illegally.

The SC may review the outcome of any judicial decision or executive action and may invalidate any such decision or action if it is in violation of any of the founding or constitutional documents, the Code of Laws or the UDHR.



Section 7 – Hearings and Trials
All impeachment hearings will be performed by the full Scientific Council . If a a member of the SC is accused, that member will be excused for the duration of the hearing. A member of the branch of government that is not calling for the impeachment hearing will serve as Chair of the SC during the hearing.


Section 8 – Limitations of the SC

Any member can be removed with a 2/3 majority vote of the SC.

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THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED TO INCORPORATE CHANGES REQUESTED BY DELIA AND PAT IN THE FOLLOWING POSTS - THIS TEXT IS THE CORRECT TEXT OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
Calli

[Patroklus Murakami]

Calli

thank you for doing the heavy lifting in terms of drafting this Act and Constitutional Amendment. As noted in your forum post, it does not satisfy everyone but provides a basis on which to proceed. Further reform of the SC is still needed in my opinion but that can take place in slower time following further debate in the CDS. I still disagree fundamentally with a 'self-selected meritocracy' but I'm prepared to vote for incremental change now in the hope that a future RA will make further reforms.

There are several issues that I have with the drafting of the Constitutional Amendment though. Several new powers for the SC have been included in the Constitutional Amendment (Article III, Section 1) which were not in my original drafting. I don't recall discussing these in committee either and they represent additional powers for the SC. Calli's draft says "The SC carries out its role by performing the following services: -Review of all Laws, amendments or repeal of Laws, amendments to the Constitution, or other official actions of the RA or Executive, to ensure that such laws, actions or amendments do not contravene the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CDS Code of Laws and the SL ToS. " (emphasis in bold).

The SC has never had the power to review 'repeal of laws' and strike them down and my view is that it should not have that power. The current draft of the Constitution says "Chairs of the SC will ratify bills passed by the Representative Assembly by simple majority vote and may resubmit the bill with modifications for vote." It says nothing about 'repeal of laws'. I think the RA must have the right to repeal laws which it considers do not meet the needs of the community. It would be quite wrong for the SC to intervene and say "no, you must keep that law on the statute books" when the RA has taken a decision to repeal it.

Similarly, the current draft of Constitution does not permit the SC to review actions of the Executive. We might think that it ought to but I don't agree with making this change now with fairly minimal debate. It's quite a large change to the checks and balances between the branches of government - the RA acts as the check on the Chancellor currently.

The addition of the UDHR, CDS Code of Law and SL ToS is perhaps a clarification of the original drafting which states "The Philosophic branch may veto or rewrite and resubmit a bill or constitutional amendment if it is in violation of any of the founding documents." I'm not opposed to this clarification but we should note that it represents a change.

I would not be happy to vote for the Constitutional Amendment if the first two new powers for the SC described above are included in the finalised text.

I will post this on the forums shortly.

Regards,
Pat

[Delia Lake]

Thank you, Calli, for doing all this work. It looks very good. I do have one change, or actually return, to what is currently in effect.

I agree with Pat regarding the SC powers and amendments and laws passed by the RA. "SC will ratify bills passed by the Representative Assembly by simple majority vote and may resubmit the bill with modifications for vote." The current Constitution says nothing about 'repeal of laws'. I prefer the way it is now that the SC must flag actions by the RA within a time limit, currently 48 hrs but it could, IMO, be 3 days or 4 days to allow for RL capturing life. Only RA actions flagged can be taken up by the SC and then they must be discussed in a public meeting of the SC and returned to the RA with comments and sometimes even recommendations for modification by the RA.

~Delia

[Callipygian]

Pat, Delia

The wording Pat objects to just slipped through the cracks when reviewing the drafts - I am not attached to it. As you thought Pat, including specific docuemtns was to move away from the vague 'founding documents'. I have edited the text of the proposed amendment to read:

" Review of all laws and amendments to the Constitution to ensure that such laws or amendments do not contravene the Constitution, the founding documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CDS Code of Laws and the SL ToS."

I believe that addresses the concerns each of you raised.

Calli

[Patroklus Murakami]

Pat, Delia

The wording Pat objects to just slipped through the cracks when reviewing the drafts - I am not attached to it. As you thought Pat, including specific docuemtns was to move away from the vague 'founding documents'. I have edited the text of the proposed amendment to read:

" Review of all laws and amendments to the Constitution to ensure that such laws or amendments do not contravene the Constitution, the founding documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CDS Code of Laws and the SL ToS."

I believe that addresses the concerns each of you raised.

Calli

Thanks Calli. I am happy with that textual change.

[Patroklus Murakami]

I vote 'aye' on the SC Affirmation Procedures Act. This had three votes at the RA meeting on 26 May (Ayes - Beathan, Rosie, Shep) and passes. Anna also has a 7-day vote on both items.

The Constitutional Amendment is a bit more tricky though. In the cold light of day, I think my comments below might have been premature:

Pat, Delia

The wording Pat objects to just slipped through the cracks when reviewing the drafts - I am not attached to it. As you thought Pat, including specific docuemtns was to move away from the vague 'founding documents'. I have edited the text of the proposed amendment to read:

" Review of all laws and amendments to the Constitution to ensure that such laws or amendments do not contravene the Constitution, the founding documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CDS Code of Laws and the SL ToS."

I believe that addresses the concerns each of you raised.

Calli

Thanks Calli. I am happy with that textual change.

We seem to be saying that the SC can review an amendment to the Constitution and veto it where it 'contravenes the Constitution'. This seems a bit circular to me. Any amendment to the Constitution could be said to 'contravene the Constitution' so does that mean the SC could reject any constitutional amendment it didn't like? I recall a debate from about 6 years ago on 'unconstitutional constitutional amendments'. I'm not sure we ever resolved that conundrum.

I think we got here because we were trying to make explicit something that is a bit opaque in the current drafting. This says "The Philosophic branch may veto or rewrite and resubmit a bill or constitutional amendment if it is in violation of any of the founding documents." but the founding documents are not defined anywhere! I'm not sure whether this bit of the rewrite actually makes things clearer or stores up problems for the future so I'll have to reserve my vote and give this some further thought.

The rest of the Constitutional Amendment is, I think, a positive incremental step forward but I have to vote on the whole as described in the RA meeting.

[Callipygian]

I vote 'aye' on the SC Affirmation Procedures Act. This had three votes at the RA meeting on 26 May (Ayes - Beathan, Rosie, Shep) and passes. Anna also has a 7-day vote on both items.

The Constitutional Amendment is a bit more tricky though. In the cold light of day, I think my comments below might have been premature:

Pat, Delia

The wording Pat objects to just slipped through the cracks when reviewing the drafts - I am not attached to it. As you thought Pat, including specific docuemtns was to move away from the vague 'founding documents'. I have edited the text of the proposed amendment to read:

" Review of all laws and amendments to the Constitution to ensure that such laws or amendments do not contravene the Constitution, the founding documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CDS Code of Laws and the SL ToS."

I believe that addresses the concerns each of you raised.

Calli

Thanks Calli. I am happy with that textual change.

We seem to be saying that the SC can review an amendment to the Constitution and veto it where it 'contravenes the Constitution'. This seems a bit circular to me. Any amendment to the Constitution could be said to 'contravene the Constitution' so does that mean the SC could reject any constitutional amendment it didn't like? I recall a debate from about 6 years ago on 'unconstitutional constitutional amendments'. I'm not sure we ever resolved that conundrum.

I think we got here because we were trying to make explicit something that is a bit opaque in the current drafting. This says "The Philosophic branch may veto or rewrite and resubmit a bill or constitutional amendment if it is in violation of any of the founding documents." but the founding documents are not defined anywhere! I'm not sure whether this bit of the rewrite actually makes things clearer or stores up problems for the future so I'll have to reserve my vote and give this some further thought.

The rest of the Constitutional Amendment is, I think, a positive incremental step forward but I have to vote on the whole as described in the RA meeting.

The Constitution itself says:

Section 7 – Powers of the RA
...
The RA can amend the constitution with a 2/3 vote.
...

I believe this was included to recognize that there would be times that the Constitution would require amendment, but the bar for doing so should be set fairly high - a 2/3 majority vote of the RA and the scrutiny of the Scientific Council.

I think your real issue lies in the following language though (bolding is mine):

"...does that mean the SC could reject any constitutional amendment it didn't like?"

I'll repeat here what Delia, myself, and I am sure others have said many times elsewhere, since new citizens are hopefully following the passage of this Amendment and may take your comment at face value. The SC does not, and is not permitted, to ratify or reject based on their likes or dislikes. For any position taken or decision given each SC member must give a rationale, usually supported by documentation - not just one rationale provided by the SC as a body, but every individual voting member. As a result, there is not only a record of the decision, but the reasoning behind it and the supporting documentation for it.

You were a member of the SC at one time Pat and I am sure the same criteria for decisions was in place. I am also sure that you, and those who served with you, did not make your decisions based on your personal likes and dislikes. There has to be some similar faith in the integrity of those who serve now and will do so in the future, and trust in the checks and balances in place to deal with those who act otherwise.

Callipygian

[Patroklus Murakami]

I've spotted another problem. The draft presented to the RA contains the following text in section 6:

"The SC may review the outcome of any judicial decision or executive action and may invalidate any such decision or action if it is in violation of any of the founding or constitutional documents, the Code of Laws or the UDHR.
" My emphasis in bold.

This was in Beathan's draft and I copied it into a revised version of my own without seeing the significance of it. I'm not sure what 'judicial decision' is doing here since we do not have a judiciary but that is perhaps not so important. The more difficult part is 'executive action'. As outlined in a previous post above, this gives the SC a new power to review decisions taken by the Chancellor. It does not have that power at the moment. We might think it would be good if the SC did have that power but I think that decision should only be taken after a proper debate. I can't support this Constitutional Amendment as currently drafted and, as the vote has been taken, we cannot go back and make changes. So I have to vote 'nay'.

I think we will have to continue this work with the new RA and hope that a Constitutional Amendment to make the useful reforms this one introduces can be passed at a later stage.

Incidentally, I found some forum posts dating back to 2006 where we debated the powers of the SC and they way in which they should or should not be limited. (You will see my views have changed a bit too in the intervening six years!)

The threads are here, here and here.