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Post by Makzim Makmaduular on Jul 30, 2008 1:17:45 GMT
Comrades, This first session of the Great Kuural henceforth convenes to assess that most pressing matter of a national constitution, by which to govern our motherland in a controlled marxist manner- any comments and suggestions would be welcome before the final drafting of the document, and inauguration of the Kuural as the mediating legislative body of the Kazari People's Republic.
The division of articles of the constitution is as follows:
The sooner our constitution is signed into law, the sooner our motherland may flourish.
Comrade Chairman, M. Makmaduular.
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Jukhan Karasar
New Member
Commissar of Culture and Propaganda
Posts: 25
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Post by Jukhan Karasar on Aug 1, 2008 12:09:00 GMT
Shall we have an open legislature for all Party members, or a closed group of elected officials?
I would also suggest motions before the legislature require only a simple majority to be approved. Motions could move in the fashion of Proposal, Debate, Motion to Vote, Second Motion to Vote, Vote, Signature by the Chairman into Law.
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Post by Makzim Makmaduular on Aug 1, 2008 13:12:58 GMT
Agreed. Possibly we ought to include some measure of ability for the people to revise and amend legislation- though I personally believe amended legislation must be passed by a 2/3 majority vote rather than simply over 50%. This will help hinder beauracracy and make constitutional and legislative amendments occur only when absolutely necessary.
We must also further define the role of the Party in determining state legislation. Until now, Party offices have merely been used as an Immigration Station and as an effective 'Ministry of the Interior' for the People's Republic. Surely the Party should have more of a role, or maybe since Kazar is a one-party state, its function on this forum as immigration offices is enough? Of course, there shall be democratic votes for chairman, hopefully every three months or so?
Part of the reason I deliberately made sure my account and the admin account were different was to allow new chairmen to have control over the account for their term.
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Jukhan Karasar
New Member
Commissar of Culture and Propaganda
Posts: 25
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Post by Jukhan Karasar on Aug 1, 2008 14:15:00 GMT
That's a good idea. A two-tiered system of moving legislation would work well. So new motions require a simple majority (+50%), whereas amendments require a 2/3rds majority.
Considering we are a one party state, so long as a person is registered with the party then they should be able to legislate and vote. If a person opts to not register with the party, then their ability to vote would be suspended until they opt in. I can't honestly envision a greater role of the party than that, at least within the legislature. I suppose at some point we'll have a Ministry of Propaganda, but in the interim that would be a sub-facet of the Ministry of the Interior.
I'm in agreement with democratic elections for Chairman, and possibly we can set up an electoral commission to conduct that when we're ready. Perhaps have a volunteer from Katyusha do the tallying for purposes of eliminating any possibility of bias. Alternately more people seem to be using DemoChoice lately. Three months is reasonable as well, although I'm not opposed to extending that to a longer term.
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Post by Makzim Makmaduular on Aug 2, 2008 18:57:47 GMT
Perhaps we ought to further define our foreign policy, too? I believe we should maintain a strictly isolationist stance towards our Imperialist neighbour micronations. In keeping with the maxim 'Peace! Land! Bread!', we should perhaps agree that the limit of our negotiations with Imperialists will be non-aggression pacts, wheras with Communist and Socialist states we may pursue relations further along the lines of a military alliance. I know many micronations place their foreign policy outside of legislation, but with such a determined one as ours we probably should legislate it so as to show our determination to the cause and to ensure we do not fraternise with the oppressors on Micras and Giess.
On the subject of regular legislation, what should be the maximum time alloted to a legislative vote, and where should we keep a repository of legislation?
I'll work on the first draft tonight, Comrade.
EDIT:
The beginning of Article III
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Jukhan Karasar
New Member
Commissar of Culture and Propaganda
Posts: 25
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Post by Jukhan Karasar on Aug 3, 2008 2:53:09 GMT
As for foreign affairs, I believe we can legislate to produce a "foreign affairs policy". That can always be produced as a separate motion outside of the constitution, allowing it a greater flexibility given the foreign situation at any given time. Regardless, I do agree we should stay away from signing sticky alliances with imperialist powers, and instead further a new Soviet Bloc.
As for voting time, I'd say between 3-4 days. What do you think is acceptable? Also, we should have a sub-forum of the Kuural for archived motions. Maybe two; one for passed, one for failed.
And no objections to the Article III draft except for 3.1: Are not all Party Members, as opposed to government employees, members of the Kuural? It sounds somewhat capitalist to say "employees", and doesn't necessarily reflect party members who simply don't have jobs yet.
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Post by Makzim Makmaduular on Aug 15, 2008 1:50:30 GMT
I concur. Article 3.1 changed from:
to:
I'm not sure about maintaining just a 3-4 day vote period- at least not at this stage. We have to remember that we're not likely to have a huge amount of active citizens for the infancy of our nation, so maintaining a longer vote time- say around one week- would allow a longer window for our few actives to vote on things. The more we rush legislation, the less effective it will be.
Agreed. Foreign policy refers directly to other micronations in name- something which would cause havoc in a constitution as constitutional amendments would be needed whenever the situation changed, as you mentioned. Shall we legislate against forming alliances with imperialists, however?
Imperialism could be defined as: The highest, and last, stage of capitalism. The merging of bank capital with industrial capital to create finance capital; industry is increasingly dominated by monopolies; the export of capital becomes more important than the export of commodities; super-profits are obtained by imperialist super-exploitation of the less developed countries.
Which of course rules out any chance of there being a loophole in which Kazar could be 'imperialist' for entertaining any wish of territorial expansion.
Perhaps you could draft Article VIII, comrade Karasar?
PEACE! LAND! BREAD! M. Makmaduular
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Jukhan Karasar
New Member
Commissar of Culture and Propaganda
Posts: 25
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Post by Jukhan Karasar on Aug 15, 2008 22:50:15 GMT
In regards to legislation, you have a point, especially considering we're both busy academically IRL.
And I have no objections to sidelining imperialist powers. However, we should not entirely alienate those that we can encourage to be liberated by their respective masses. Maintaining some sort of dialogue with such powers will allow us to speak to their repressed masses and spread the word of communism. So perhaps some sort of "status quo" neutral formality can be attained with imperialist powers?
I shall try and put together a draft for Article VIII tomorrow.
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Post by Makzim Makmaduular on Aug 16, 2008 0:07:54 GMT
I think some kind of run-of-the-mill non-aggression pact is the furthest we should tolerate imperialist powers. A kind of basic respecting of their borders and soforth, which doesn't bind us to stop any propagandist activities we may be doing for the masses in those nations. I also don't think it's worth having recognition treaties- they're a waste of time and younger micronations often mistake them for a military alliance which we'll only even consider doing with a socialist state. Maybe just a non-aggression pact... true alliances are such a rare thing that I think alliance treaties should be formed at the discretion of the Foreign Ministry as regards the situation micronationally at that particular time. Maybe we should only legislate guidlines about how to form an alliance- for example, legislate that we must include a mutual guarantee of eachother's independence and soforth. Anyway, I have the feeling COMICTERN or something like it will be the only Communist Alliance group we'll be joining- unless of course some kind of an inter-socialist rift forms and we find ourselves as the China of Micras
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Jukhan Karasar
New Member
Commissar of Culture and Propaganda
Posts: 25
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Post by Jukhan Karasar on Aug 16, 2008 1:45:15 GMT
As for the imperialists, that's basically what I meant. I don't think we need to legislate a standardized treaty for everything. It should be up to the foreign commissar to draft a treaty and then present it to the Kuural for approval. Perhaps that's how we can write it in the constitution?
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Post by Makzim Makmaduular on Aug 16, 2008 8:07:58 GMT
Sure. But certain provisions need to be met to ensure that such a treaty is written in appropriate legislative fashion. I believe it's important to add a clause in the constitution dictating the layout of how all legislation is to be written, so that we have a fully concise and easily understandable legislative archive. It would give us grounds to reject legislation which is messy, full of irrelevancies, and moreover, loopholes through which the imperialists can get at the masses! On a similar note, shall we include a penal system in the constitution? Though important, I've always found that micronationally, magistrates' courts are useless as the accused usually leaves the micronation anyway before the trial begins. Such is the way of the world in this hobby. I think we should include a list of what is considered high treason, and leave the punishment up to the Kuural to decide. Of course, in cases of high treason the only obvious thing to do is to revoke citizenship. EDIT: Anything else we need for External Affairs, Comrade?
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