Creating an ideal constitution

Before we talk about the point of the thread, I'd like to summarize why did I make it: in the general US politics thread, one of the users there asked if we had a thread to create a constitution for our own hypothetical nation. Mod Septimus Heap linked two threads, one in this sub forum and another in the world building one. But since both were over three years old, and the one in this subforum was already 42 pages, we decided to make a new thread to discuss the subject of making a constitution for a hypothetical country.

Of course, for that, we need a country first, so we'd like to start by reaching an agreement on the following points:

• What will the population be? I'll suggest starting from a range between 30 to 70 million people, which would put the country somewhere between slightly more people than Thailand or France at highest and slightly less than Venezuela or Malaysia at lowest, in the top 20 to top 40 most populated nations, which I guess would make it a middle of the road country in terms of population and a big enough range to move between a regional power to an almost collapsed hellhole.

• And the Demographics of this population? this means, is the country homogeneous or very diverse? does its population lean older or younger? are they somewhat affluent or dirt poor?, etc.

Opening this, although there was no issue with using the older thread, too.

So, structure of the legistature? I like I Fwanderer's idea back on the old thread, but I think it would depend on how many provinces there are.

What kind of country are we talking about? The only country I've modelled in detail has a population of about 30 million people, on an archipelago of small desrt islands, the population relatively affluent and extremely young.

In case we use this one, I'll copy the links to useful posts:

• A page with constitutions from many countries, to compare and contrast them, and maybe get some ideas.
• DeMarquis links to the concept of "council democracy" and to the "final" result in the old thread.
• Discussion between Elle and LinkToTheFuture about rights of corporations.
• My suggestion for a legislature, based on the Argentine model.

edited 9th Feb '17 6:23:44 PM by IFwanderer

I was thinking either Fantasy California (maybe including Baja) or a tropical island chain a bit like Septimus'.

Tropical desert islands, mind you. Although thinking about it, I suspect that policy issues would be fairly similar between what you seem to be thinking of and the setting I've constructed.

Let me start off by explaining what Council Democracy is, and what the advantages are (it's usually proposed for small to medium sized countries, but I believe it will scale up to any size).

"The idea of ‘council’ democracy is simple. Local people meet in local assemblies to decide on local matters. They choose individuals from among their number to participate in assemblies higher up. The process can be repeated at many different levels, so that politicians are chosen by citizens who know them personally, not by political parties.

This idea is the complete opposite to the structure of political authority in party-political ‘democracies’ where representatives are put forward by those in power, managed by party organisations, excluding people at large from the exercise of power."

I think it could be used as a new form of legislature, or as a type of ballot process, or both. In the case of a legislature, local cities and counties (American term) select (a variety of means are available, not just elections) a council of residents to pass laws and regulations. They, in turn, select (usually from among their own number, but non council members could be selected as well) to move up to the council of the next larger territory (in the US, that would be a state). Then repeat for the National Coucil.

Nearly all council models propose consensus as their decision rule, rather than majority vote (otherwise, an actual elected legislature makes more sense). Consensus building is a formal process with objective rules and procedures which research has shown will deliver high quality decisions, but it generally takes longer than voting. In a crisis, some other more time-efficient decision making approrach needs to be available, which generally is vested either in an exectutive council, or in an executive person. In our constitution, we used a directly elected president to make quick decisions, when appropriate. We also had a traditional parliament, because certain tropers wanted one.

So we ended up with a two-branch legislature, one branch being the Councils, the other being a parliament, and an elected President. Plus, a Supreme Court. We also included a set of rights, and a "Bureau of Public Welfare" which included a series of semi-independent "National Policy Panels" which used scientists and other recognized experts as consultants on policy design and implementation.

edited 9th Feb '17 9:59:52 AM by DeMarquis

That seems like a good idea, but I feel like that would still lead to more politicking and de facto parties anyway, just in a different flavor. How does one get on those councils anyway, and how are their powers separate from those of the main legislature? Otherwise I like the idea. I think we could have the National Council representing specific geographical areas alongside the Parliament, who are directly elected through their parties. Maybe the Parliament can propose and vote on legislation, and the National Councils must provide their approval before it becomes law? I feel like there needs to be a check on the Council too, however, and I don't know how they could come up with rules themselves.

National Policy Panels are a fantastic idea. Again, the only question is who decides who goes on those panels.

I kind of liked the SC ideas you had, seemed like a nice way to avoid the thing becoming a politicized mess like the SCOTUS without making the courts fossilized. Overall though, I don't really just want to copy everything from the old thread, just take some of the better ideas.

edited 9th Feb '17 11:29:08 AM by LinkToTheFuture

In out constitution, voting members were self selected among people willing to show up for a minimum number of hours per month, but there are other approaches. The requirement for consensus is intended to ensure wide scale coalition building, such that majority factions play less of a role.

Well, so council members are just those who show up to the municipal meetings for a given number of time, and then rise through the ranks due to being selected by consensus to advance? Sounds like a decent plan to me, though I want a few more basic rules governing these and a max number of councilors per council.

Also, I've edited in the rest of my thoughts on the ideas in the post.

This might be federal-law level instead of constitutional, but I wonder how elections are going to work. There are several intriguing options, as long as it isn't bleedin' FPTP.

edited 9th Feb '17 11:54:07 AM by LinkToTheFuture

If the Council is based on reaching consensus, there should be some mechanism to kick out assholes who just stay on it to obstruct (whether out of an ideology or for the lolz).

You know, with that kind of national council a Parliament doesn't seem necessary, that just seems to me like tropers getting stuck into "that's how we do it here, let's keep it familiar". And I personally don't think a President is a good idea, since it's easy for one to become a focal point for demagoguery and "Personality Politics" ("I'm voting that funny and cool guy/chick even though the only thing s/he does is mock the other candidates and has no policy positions of his/her own"). So how about this I'll use up to three alternative names for the middle administrations instead of defaulting to the US ones):

• A self selected Council, as described by De Marquis that has levels from Local to National Council, where people can go to their Local Council and delegates are sent to form the higher level Council, all the way up to national (example assuming a big city, Santiago de Chile sized: Nieghbourhood/Commune(as they're named in Buenos Aires City)/Precinct Council > City Council >(If on a urban/metropolitan area or conurbation) Metropolitan Council > County/Department (as they're called in most of Argentina except Buenos Aires province)/Party (the name in Argentina's Buenos Aires province) Council > State/Province (in the Canadian or Argentine sense, not the Italian one) Council > National Council. This would be the main chamber, where most important stuff is decided.
• An appointed council of experts that's somewhat of a hybrid between a Cabinet and a Senate, it can be reshuffled if the Council wishes so to deal with specific emergencies (example: it usually has two experts in education, three economists, one environmental scientist, a general and one lawyer. In the case of a war, the education experts and two of the economists can be replaced by more military officers and the lawyer by a diplomat).

What do you think (I'll expand on the powers and responsibilities of the Expert Council later, because I have to go, feel free to tinker with it in the meanwhile).

I personally prefer Marquis' proposal because it gives one self-selected branch of experts and/or regular interested Average Joes (though these will almost certainly thin out at higher levels, as that would mean you'd basically need it to be your job) and one branch that is directly elected by the constituents, this could work at basically every level beyond the smallest municipalities, who presumably have their own rules for this sort of thing. As for executives, I'm torn, because there is value in both having and not having one (and I also have an idea for how they'd be elected, but that's just minor details). I'm not sure what kind of power to give this hypothetical executive, if they exist, as if both they and the council have veto power then the potential for total gridlock would be brutal, as well as the problems you mentioned, but it gives a means through which all of the various Ministries could be structured, as well as giving a recognizable face to the nation, as well as doing stuff like receiving foreign dignitaries, grant pardons, etc.

As for organization, we could do it as Neighborhood (Optional)<District/Borough (largest cities only)<Municipality<County/Department<Province<Nation. Tracts of non-inhabited land can be under municipal, provincial, or federal jurisdiction, depending on how it's assigned.

I think that plan is nice, IFwanderer, but I feel like it cuts out the right to vote a little too much, as the only way a citizen can engage with the government is through the councils, which can lead to a disconnect on all but the lowest levels, without a way to vote in somebody who they'd rather have.

And there absolutely must be a way to remove council members who are being obstructionist assholes. I agree with you on that.

edited 9th Feb '17 2:45:51 PM by LinkToTheFuture

While I understand the concern of cutting people out of the voting process, I think it's trading off representative democracy for direct democracy (effectively, I want the answer to a disliked Councilperson to be "get into the Council at the relevant level and convince the people there not to send that person as the higher tier delegate" instead of "vote for the other guy" or more commonly "complain about the guy but fall in line and vote for them 'cause party loyalty"). Especially because nowadays, with internet and conference calls, it should be easier for someone to be "[job] and Council(wo)man" instead of government being a full time job. But you do mention a valid issue of disconnect between government and citizenship, I would suggest two mechanisms to solve (or at least mitigate) that:

1. A right to petition (and to be heard) in Council at the relevant level, should your delegate (if on a higher level of government) ignore your situation or the lowest level not care (or if the issue is beyond the jurisdiction of the Local Council). 2. These two recall mechanisms (for an entire Council or for specific members): 1. If you get at least a third of the people in the relevant level to sign a petition for it (say you want to remove a representative in the Provincial/State Council, you need signatures from the entire province) a referendum starts. 2. Get half +1 of the Councils at the level immediately below to formally ask for a person's removal (again, to remove someone at the State Council, you need half +1 of the Regional Councils requesting them to step down). These ones can escalate (a Municipal Council can elevate a request at the County Council to ask at the State Council to remove somebody) and be propagated laterally (if the request is started in City Council A, they can get in contact with Councils B, C and however many are in the same district to send the request together).

On the powers of the "executive" chamber (do you guys think Directory is a good name?), while I haven't defined them completely, I want it to be less powerful than the Council, but with specific instances to refuse them. I'll go with something like this to start on the relation between chambers:

• The Directory does not have power to start a legislative project, but they can submit suggestions on what issues may require legislation to the Council.
• They do not normally have a final veto power, they can send prospective legislation back to the Council with modifications or a recommendation to revoke, but the Council can ignore those modifications or recommendations.
• The only situations where the Directory can have a final be veto is if their experience on the subject shows the law is: impossible to implement ("as a physicist I can tell you it is impossible to make a Moon cannon"); would have effects counter to what it's supposedly designed to do; or if it would go against the Constitution.

IMHO, an ideal constitution would, above all else, protect the citizens' right to vote and to make voting as convenient as possible. Like, say, make it a holiday or something.

Absolutely.

I see what I believe to be a flaw: the things you are proposing seem like they'd inevitably lead to fossilization. For any level past the smallest ones, the number of people who be required to remove a councilor from office would get absurdly high. Also, becoming a councilor and rising to a sufficient level to challenge them would be much, much too long and difficult a process to be worth it. Presumably, the process needed to advance is sufficiently rigorous, as these people will be influencing policy decisions of every kind in this vision. However, I don't think it's a particularly good idea to have the council just gain one member every time someone walks in, as that could get out of control really quickly. Since we're managing a rather large country, that wouldn't be very suitable on provincial or federal level stuff. Once again, it also deprives people of their right to have a direct say in what is going on, as removing someone from a council position is extremely difficult. If we have a population of 30 million, that's 10 million signatures needed to remove just one National Councillor. That's a ridiculous number. Various people would become entrenched in the system, ironically giving them the exact opposite result than what we wanted. Therefore, I think that having the councils and nothing else as legislators is not a very good idea.

I feel like there should be a directly elected representative body voted in with a proportional election system. My suggestion is a Single Transferable Vote system where seats in the legislature are divided up among provincial lines, though this is not necessarily the way to go. I'll try to elaborate on it later.

The way I see it, the legistature gets to actually draw up the laws and vote on them, as well as other miscellaneous things that legislatures do. (We'll have to elaborate). However, the corresponding Council must approve through the aforementioned consensus whatever bills pass, as well as set the agenda for what the legislature is trying to accomplish. However, they can't write up laws of their own. I'm concerned about gridlock and the potential role of a potential executive, however. Perhaps we have a Prime Minister instead?

edited 9th Feb '17 6:54:26 PM by LinkToTheFuture

Of course it would (assuming it is a constitution of a representative democracy, if it's not one of those two things it can afford to care a bit less), it's just that we're still thinking the government will function, and we seem to be going in a direction closer to a direct democracy than a representative one.

OK, I'll wait. Keep in mind I'm going to sleep in a while so I could take a few hours to answer.

EDIT: I have seen it. Will answer in detail when I wake up but you make up some good points, I think I have some possible answers for them tomorrow.

edited 9th Feb '17 6:45:14 PM by IFwanderer

So, obstructionism isnt as much of a problem as it might seem. For one thing, "consensus" doesn't mean 100% agreement- it's more like 85%, which is still quite high, but one or two hold-outs aren't going to bring everything to a crashing halt. Second, for any particular issue that comes up for discussion and decision ("D&D"), if a particular council cannot come to consensus, then the issue gets kicked down (not up, consistent with the grass-roots philsophy this approach is based on) to all the sub-level councils who "report" to that particular over-council. Typically, the set-up is an average of 10 or so sub-regional councils within an over-council (10 neighborhoods to a city, ten cities to a county, etc.). So if discussion is deadlocked, it goes down to the sub-councils, and if 50%+1 sub-councils achieve consensus on that issue it's decided, and passed on to the appropriate policy council for implementation. At the very lowest level, deadlocked D&D's are put to the entire neighborhood for a general vote (think of it as a kind of ballot initiative). While an entire region's worth of councils could become polarized over some hot-button issue, it will actually be quite difficult for some partisan faction to obstruct consensus in 11 or so independent citizen's councils.

Now, you might still want to remove some individual member, but that will be more a case of corruption or unethical behavior. In that case, I would be more comfortable taking that responsibility entirely away from the deliberative bodies themselves, and vesting it instead in some independent "corruption police", working directly for the Judiciary branch. That way, politics are less likely to interfere with investigations of council members.

edited 9th Feb '17 8:20:52 PM by DeMarquis

Are you replying to me or to someone else, Marquis?

In any case, I still think that having a pure council system probably wouldn't quite work on a full-scale level in a nation of this size.

Both of you. I'm suggesting a simpler answer than either of you seem to be considering.

Also- I'm open to either a pure electionless council system, or a hybrid approach (which is what we ended up adopting, although that was the result of compromise, not any one troper's idea).

I vote aye on hybrid. Best of both worlds to me.

The electionless system is intriguing, but I feel it could get really chaotic and difficult to get much done or change at the highest level.

edited 9th Feb '17 8:38:08 PM by LinkToTheFuture

De Marquis: I like your answer to the issue better. And I prefer "pure" council to Council and elected parliament, because I find the parliament less democratic, as it is very hard for someone to get elected if they're not rich enough or they don't have a party backing them. And with party backing comes partisanship, that can cause polarization, causing gridlock, resulting in institutional collapse.

We could just impose campaign spending limits for people running for elected office to stop it from being a rich people only club.

Unfortunately, that doesnt go far enough. You want to explicitly empower the legislative branches, at each of the levels of government, unrestricted power to regulate political donations or spending of any kind, including donations of services, provided this is done in a nondiscriminatory manner.

"Political" purpose to include any donation or spending for the purpose of influencing an election, concerning a policy issue during an election cycle, or given to any candidate or elected official.

Lobbyists are like household pests, they will find any loophole and swarm inside.

That council democracy thing reminds me a little of Wikipedia's decision making processes, whereby stuff is decided by a consensus in a discussion rather than a vote. Ignoring scaling issues for a moment, the lack of a definitive way to gauge a decision makes it impractical for actual government.