Proposed Amendment

Suggested Constitutional Ammendment:

Preamble.

WE, the Nations of The North Pacific (TNP), mindful of the inherent rights to justice, security, democratic regional leadership and national sovereignty do hereby proclaim this constitution to be the living and growing document of our liberties. This document shall be the foundation of our culture, society and law and shall be respected in spirit and in word by all residents of The North Pacific.

Fully cognizant of our role as a Feeder Region within the online game of NationStatesTM, and acknowledging that our character as such involves interaction with players new to that game,we avow to play fairly, educate where necessary, applaud when appropriate, and above all to remember that this is a game.

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I know it's not much but it's a good place to start.

What exactly are you trying to do?

He's trying to delete the entire preamble of the Constitution.

I don't think that's something we really need to do. We are a feeder, that should be our role, whether we like it or not. And I personally do anyway.

What would this achieve?

It wouldn't achieve anything at all because a preamble is a statement of purpose and spirit of a document and is traditionally used in constitutions as a guiding principle. While a preamble has no binding power and cannot be used as an excuse for a goverment to over-extend it's powers beyond the scope of a constitution, it is a good idea to have a preamble.

The purpose of the preamble is to extremeley digest the purpose of the constution into a small paragraph for those who have short attention spans (hey look, a butterfly )

Given the history that I've lived through (and been a part of) I would be strongly opposed to such a ammendment.

If this is the purpose I suggest the following re-wording of the ammendment

Re-worded Ammendment:

In the constution of The North Pacific,
That the preamble and all refrences to it be struck from the document

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I was basically trying to make a point but, naturally, the point was lost; I really couldn't care less about the Preamble despite the fact that it serves no real purpose other than to make this beast just a little bit bigger.

Fedele:

I was basically trying to make a point but, naturally, the point was lost; I really couldn't care less about the Preamble despite the fact that it serves no real purpose other than to make this beast just a little bit bigger.

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I do agree that The North Pacific Constitution is unnecessarily complex, but I think the Preamble is one of the better parts that should be kept, not taken away.

We should just let the delegate rule us with an Iron fist.

I agree that our constitution is rather complex though :S

Grenval:

Fedele:

I was basically trying to make a point but, naturally, the point was lost; I really couldn't care less about the Preamble despite the fact that it serves no real purpose other than to make this beast just a little bit bigger.

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I do agree that The North Pacific Constitution is unnecessarily complex.

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A constitution and Legal Code for dummies is on its way!!!

I get the point. I cannot forget that the Preamble was created by the nations of this region who were working to repair a shattered TNP. The process of articulating a vision for the region brought us together and helped us to realize shared goals.

This is the preamble that was proposed and adopted at the constitutional convention last June.

Oddly enough the constitution that was approved at the constitutional convention is longer than the current text.
By revising election procedures, and the merger of the group of registered voters into the regional assembly membership, the length has been noticeably shortened.

Grosseschnauzer:

Oddly enough the constitution that was approved at the constitutional convention is longer than the current text.
By revising election procedures, and the merger of the group of registered voters into the regional assembly membership, the length has been noticeably shortened.

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And yay for that.

You know, he has a point; it’s really just a bunch of more or less purposeless words, less of a mission statement and more of a fancy introduction.

Perhaps a bit of history will help illuminate my point. The discussion on the Preamble can be found here. That forum has other discussions on the role of a feeder in NS. Those participating at the time were striving to define what we should be about. The Preamble is a distillation of those thoughts and ideals.

For what it's worth, I appluad Fedele's idea to lessen the length of the Constitution, but I too believe that the Preamble serves some symbolic significance.

And I like symbols.

My next idea was to have Mr Sniffles reword the constitution complete with jokes and double entendres but I don't know how popular that idea would be.

I know the constitution takes a bit of bashing from all sides, but I actually quite like it.

Yeah its long, and yeah its unwieldy. But its got class. It like a big old dinosaur, plodding along at its own pace. And things might not get done that quickly, but there sure as hell ain't much that can stop this dinosaur.

So some people might find it difficult to unravel. But theres enough people here who understand it, and even more who have an individual expertise in a particular part of it. And with a bit of effort it doesn't take long to decipher it...

As to the preamble, well its just as good as the rest. I say, cut and paste it on to the end as well...

One way to prevent the Constitution from growing to enourmous size is to do something possibly unthinkable - engage in legislation to enact laws rather than to amend the Constitution at every turn. Frankly, I think amending the Constitution here is too easy of a process.

IOW, we should be enacting legislation and leaving the Constitution alone as much as practically possible.

Assuming that the RA is a legislative body, then I would have to agree with Roman here.

I believe that we should remove the emphasis on changing the constitution, and perhaps write a small how-to guide on proposing laws. Rather than amending the consitutition to make it more difficult to amend the constitution, we should attempt to create a shift in attitude.

Maybe Grosse could step up to the plate and explain in LAYMEN'S terms how the laws and constitution interact, and how one would know which route is the best to take when wanting to enact change.

mr_sniffles:

Grenval:

Fedele:

I was basically trying to make a point but, naturally, the point was lost; I really couldn't care less about the Preamble despite the fact that it serves no real purpose other than to make this beast just a little bit bigger.

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I do agree that The North Pacific Constitution is unnecessarily complex.

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A constitution and Legal Code for dummies is on its way!!!

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I don't need things dumbed down to understand them, nor do most people around here. But what The North Pacific Constitution says in twenty-three words, I can say in two. What The North Pacific Constitution repeats fourteen times, I can repeat not at all. What The North Pacific Constitution seeks to include, it necessarially limits out what it ignores.

Constitutions with broad legal interpretations are more open to growth, more encompassing, and generally more fair. Justice does not come from a verbatim adherence to a code of laws. It comes from a responsible people, headed by a responsible government, who act in the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.

The original TNP constitution I wrote a couple of years back was designed to offer general guidelines for government structure and the rights and responsibilities of the region's citizens. The specifics were to be outlined in a separate legal code. Seemed to make sense at the time. Unfortunately, shortly after the constitution's adoption, the delegate, Magicality, disappeared, followed by, more or less, a year of turmoil and the legal code never got written.

That's my long, self-serving way of saying I agree with Roman and Digitalis, though I'm unsure if this is feasible with our current all-encompassing constitution.

Somewhere in the threads Wizard pinned for the RA is a link to a thread about drafting legislation that was originally posted when the Ministry of Justice supervised the process of legislation.
The bill drafting guide was copy and pasted from a RL online citizen's guide to writing legislation. (And because that source was originally written for laymen, I figure that would be a workable source.
The attention to describing procedures now contained in the Constitution was primary the result of need to make sure some sort of process was included; we were anxious to avoid paralysis that would exist if the processes were not sufficiently described.
; parts of the Constitution that emerged from the constitutional convention have already been transferred into the Legal Code; and over time, with political stability I'm sure other ports can be transferred as well. (Most of the election procedures and the procedures for criminal trials that are now in the Legal Code were originally in the Constitution.
Remember that there was no common legal tradition in place; that had to be created and placed in the Constitution. Pver time I am sure that other provisions describing procedure will end up in the Legal Code, and the Constitution anticipates this by describing processes that apply until a law is enacted.
Not every piece of legislation has been a constitutional amendment; several purely Legal Code proposals have come to a vote, and some of those have been adopted.

PS -- its a-m-e-n-d-m-e-n-t, one m and not two. If I could fix the thread title, I would.