Proposed Amendment to the Constitution

Gracius Maximus

Gracius Maximus

Tyrant (Ret.)
Proposed amendment to the Constitution detailing the creation of the Minister of Internal Affairs, modification to the Minister of External Affairs, modification to the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs and removal of the Minister of Communications, Minister of Arts & Entertainment and Minister of Culture & Education:

Items in RED are proposed to be removed. Items in BLUE are proposed to be added.

3) Minister of Immigration. and Internal Affairs.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for communicating with new member Nations, answering questions and highlighting regional procedures and guidelines.
B - The Minister shall be responsible for compiling domestic intelligence and enforcing Regional guidelines.
C - The Minister shall be responsible for overseeing the Regional Assembly registration process and procedures in conjunction and with the support of, the Prime Minister, the Regional off-site forum administrators, and other support personnel within the Regional Government, as designated by either the Prime Minister and/or the Cabinet of the North Pacific Regional Government.

4) Minister of External Affairs.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for establishing and maintaining relations and alliances between The North Pacific and other regions and multi-regional organizations, in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the registered voters of the Region.
B - The Minister shall recruit, oversee, and direct The North Pacific Diplomatic Corps, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and The North Pacific Legal Code.
C - The Minister shall be responsible for initiating, directing and moderating debates on subjects of Regional and national interest specific to events located outside the region proper.
D- The Minister, in conjunction with the Prime Minister or the minister with appropriate jurisdiction, shall be responsible for the publication of the actions of the Regional Government, both within and outside of the Region.

5) Minister of Internal Affairs.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for moderating the Out-of-Character, Role-Playing and Games forums at the Regional off-site forums.
B - The Minister shall initiate and oversee activities and topics for the general entertainment of The North Pacific's member Nations.
C - The Minister shall encourage the Cultural and Educational arts and industries, protect The North Pacific's heritage, and advance the public information system of the Region in order to maximize their contribution to the region's awareness and social vitality.
D - The Minister shall be responsible for initiating, directing and moderating debates on subjects of Regional and national interest, such as UN proposals and resolutions.

7) Minister of Communications.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for initiating, directing and moderating debates on subjects of Regional and national interest, such as legislative and Cabinet issues within the Regional Government, UN proposals and resolutions, and general interest discussions.
B- The Minister, in conjunction with the Prime Minister or the minister with appropriate jurisdiction, shall be responsible for the publication of the actions of the Regional Government, both within and outside of the Region.
C- The Minister, unless required for specified identifiable reasons of regional security to withhold specific material (as determined in each instance by a majority vote of the Cabinet), shall provide the publication if full of the records and minutes of Cabinet proceedings and debates. The vote of the Prime Minister and each Cabinet Minister in a Cabinet meeting shall be a matter of public record.

8) Minister of Arts and Entertainment.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for moderating the Out-of-Character, Role-Playing and Games forums at the Regional off-site forums.
B - The Minister shall initiate and oversee activities and topics for the general entertainment of The North Pacific's member Nations.

9) Minister of Culture and Education.
A - The Minister shall encourage the Cultural and Educational arts and industries, protect The North Pacific's heritage, and advance the public information system of the Region in order to maximize their contribution to the region's awareness and social vitality.
 
I was MoCE during the NPC days, if that counts, and I support this.

We can't afford to have such a large, decentralized Government any longer. We need to cut down the number of elected positions in a reasonable manner, otherwise we will only have more and more trouble getting enough people to even fill the positions, much less provide actual elections (i.e, more than one person running for the positions). This does that.
 
I was the original Minister of Culture and Education. I must admit that I panicked at the amount of red at first, but this would appear to make since. MoCE doesn't do that much unless they take it upon themselves to do something (TNP University, Archival re-vamp, etc.). The OOC largely seems to maintain itself, without a large amount of input from the Minister. The MoC does appear to have a bit to do, but it could easily be consolidated into a joint office.

I suppose I'd support this.
 
I think this consolidation would work for the regional government; one thing which concerns me is this might swamp the MoEA in the event of a diplomatic flare-up. Any concerns would be alleviated by a thumbs-up from any previous MoEA, though.
 
Most of the added duties for the MoEA focus on forum moderation. We've got a strong mod team available, so if a major debate opens up as a result of a large diplomatic incident, there should be plenty of people on hand to assist the MoEA.
 
I'd also point out that the MoEA has his Deputy, Ambassador-General and Diplomatic Corps to aid in diplomatic situations.

Supposedly anyway.

This has my support.
 
I support the move to a vote.

Sorry if that's the kiss of death GM but nevertheless I do support it, and a vote on it.
 
I have to agree, and I'm minister of Culture now. It is a great job in a time of war but aside from that nobody seems to give enough of a damn about it to contribute.
 
Looks good. The only thing I'm unsure about is rolling the communications job into the MoEA, considering the relatively minimal job of the Ministry of Internal Affairs might it be something better put there? Apart from that I'm all in favour of this ammendment.
 
The Minister of Immigration will oversee the Regional Assembly? I thought that would be more a job for the Minister of Internal Affairs.

For a switch, to not overburden the MoIA, line item B in section 5 (and in section 3?):

B - The Minister shall initiate and oversee activities and topics for the general entertainment of The North Pacific's member Nations.
Click to expand...

Could potentially be a job for Immigration.

For a more logical approach, Minister of Immigration should probably have only one job, though it will put undue pressure on the Minister of Internal Affairs, and thats the first proposed item:

A - The Minister shall be responsible for communicating with new member Nations, answering questions and highlighting regional procedures and guidelines.
Click to expand...

This could be a job for a Naturalization Officer, also under the auspice of the Minister of IA, instead of something that would require an entire ministry's attention.

Sorry to be late to the party folks.. I have only these issues. I like all the changes, but it needs to be cleaned up, copies of B removed and RA issues resolved.
 
The Minister of Immigration will oversee the Regional Assembly? I thought that would be more a job for the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Click to expand...

Actually, as it stands, no one but the Speaker of the RA 'oversees' the RA. Look at it this way - the RA is the Legislative Branch and it stands alone as a branch of government. To have someone who is a member of another branch 'oversee' the legislative branch is a violation of seperation of powers and a violation of the Consitution in principle.

We have seperation of powers for a very good reason.


R
 
Where in the post that I had made did I ever state that we needed to give power to fewer people? That we needed to take away any form of seperation of powers?

All I said is that the power to 'oversee' the RA should belong to the Minister of Internal Affairs.

To have someone who is a member of another branch 'oversee' the legislative branch is a violation of seperation of powers and a violation of the Consitution in principle.
Click to expand...

Thank you for addressing this Romanoffia (nice to see you again by the way!), it adds weight to my arguement.

I also addressed several other points in my post, what did you think about the idea that the Minister of Immigration, without the comingling you and I are talking about, and the copy of line item B removed, should not be a ministry, and instead should be a job for a Naturalization Officer type of nation?
 
True. Immigration and naturalization is an executive function. What I worry about is the centralization and concentration of too many powers into two few hands when not neccessary. During war, there is a need for a certain amount of temporary concentration of power, but in such a way that we don't end up with the 'forever war' that Orwell speaks about in 1984.

While, as far as distribution of power and authority goes, too many cooks can ruin the broth, only one cook makes us all eat the same thing.
 
That is truthfully a dear thing to worry about, but does our government not already concentrate the powers of Internal Affairs and Immigration into one?

You spoke of an Orwellian forever war, but I say that a feeder region is always in a war. It is, in essence, a (usually, and preferably) grief/spam free warzone..as is any region without a founder, just not to the degree that a desirable feeder is. But in truth, thats doubleplusunrelevant to this proposed amendment, which does not include provisions or changes for wartime.

Orwell also said that, "freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four," and we know that regardless of how many unneeded ministries we remove, it will leave enough good men in the RA, and enough power to the masses to ensure freedom under any circumstance.

If the problem is that we're having trouble filling positions, and ive found yet another irrelevant one, then should that irrelevant position continue to be filled, adding to red tape?

In truth, the one thing that I have NO qualifications to speak on is whether or not you believe TNP RA is capable enough to elect 4 or 5 qualified members to the ministry positions, and 5 security council members all capable enough to ensure that bad apples are weeded out, and that a state of continued warfare is eliminated. We in TNP are lucky to have Ministries that are mostly administrative, and much less executive in power. If a Ministry can't make too big a move without RA approval, how much damage can they do?

I love your cooking analogy though.. hope you dont mind if I use that in the future. ;) Its a good thing that we have 10+ cooks then!

My real question is, do you like Gracius' ideas and vision? Or does something about removing the Minister of Immigration post in his vision strike you as cruel and unjust?

Subliminal message: come on IRC more often.

This subliminal message brought to you by Weirdplace and AdynCorp.
 
The ministries are totally free to act within their Constitutionally delegated authority, largely without leave from anyone. That is, if they stick to their delegated authority.

The key to the success or failure of any government is the level of activity that government has and the speed by which it is capable of acting. Granted, a smaller and more compact government that is more centralized has it's advantages, but it also has it's inherent flaws just like any other system.

If you wanted to have a totally efficient government that can react instantly, they you would go for a totalitarian arrangement in which the head of government can act with impunity. But the major utilitarian flaw with that is if the head of such a state becomes an absent figure, you end up with all manner of power struggles, etc., even if you have a clear plan of succsession. You also end up with a government with a very stagnant political life and a need to suppress any opposition. Totalitarian arrangements give me a bad taste in my mouth.

On the other hand, you can go with a totally inefficent government by carrying democracy and distribution of powers to an extreme and you end up with anarchy. I hate anarchy because there is a need for a certain level of order, or rather, orderly and simple proceedures to run an efficient and orderly government that gives the most freedom to its constitutents.

The happy medium, IMHO, is a representative republic bound by a constitution with seperation of powers designed to impose a system of checks and balances. This requires a certain amount of distribution of powers that is neither too broad or too narrow. Decreasing the number of voting cabinet members tends to concentrate executive authority into fewer hands which can lead to problems. But there is a solution to this that would possibly make the government more effective, efficient and stronger without sacrificing distribution of power or otherwise narrowing it.

What probably needs to be done is to give the Prime Minister a little more executive authority, especially in the veto department. With the current arrangement, the Prime Minister in cabinet votes is largely a 'Minister-at-large'. Any move in this direction needs to be carefully examined.
 
I agree with and understand everything you said Roman, and lets not forget, fewer voting Cabinet members also means that the potential is there for an outside power to influence the votes of the RA with propaganda.. we can hope that the Ministers would be less affected by said propaganda.

My opinion in this entire topic is definately lacking in experience as far as this specific region goes, and I certainly wont argue with someone who has been through it all with TNP when they're making perfect sense.

Nonetheless... Immigration will need another task if it is to survive this clean-up, because as is, that pesky line item B is copied into the Interior job description as well, and the whole matter of who oversees the RA hasn't yet been resolved (we're the only ones really commenting.. I'd love to hear from Gracius and others, and see some revisions). Since item A in Immigration is a job that can be done by a single person, a Naturalization officer, I would suggest adding to the job that item B.. this makes sense because a Immigration Minister should be responsible for not only recruiting new nations onto the forums and into the nation, but also for keeping those nations that are already in the region, in the region.. if ya know what I mean.. and that duty includes coming up with new games, incentives, rewards, and introducing all new members to that aspect of TNP.

I agree completely that the Minister of Immigration post should be kept, if for nothing more than another vote, but adding this job to the position means that it makes more sense, and that his/her vote is earned through as much hard work as any other ministry leader's.

I would also suggest keeping my idea on the table for the future, if ever there arent enough qualified members to fill Minister seats, and make for interesting elections.

Thanks for the good debate and learning experience. :)
 
Do we even have an agreed upon final wording? The reaction seems mixed and if I was to rush this, it wouldn't give it a good chance.

Plus do these changes happen immediately, in other words draw up another election? Or do they start next term?
 
Gracius Maximus:
Proposed amendment to the Constitution detailing the creation of the Minister of Internal Affairs, modification to the Minister of External Affairs, modification to the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs and removal of the Minister of Communications, Minister of Arts & Entertainment and Minister of Culture & Education:

Items in RED are proposed to be removed.  Items in BLUE are proposed to be added.

3) Minister of Immigration. and Internal Affairs.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for communicating with new member Nations, answering questions and highlighting regional procedures and guidelines.
B - The Minister shall be responsible for compiling domestic intelligence and enforcing Regional guidelines.
C - The Minister shall be responsible for overseeing the Regional Assembly registration process and procedures in conjunction and with the support of, the Prime Minister, the Regional off-site forum administrators, and other support personnel within the Regional Government, as designated by either the Prime Minister and/or the Cabinet of the North Pacific Regional Government.

4) Minister of External Affairs.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for establishing and maintaining relations and alliances between The North Pacific and other regions and multi-regional organizations, in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the registered voters of the Region.
B - The Minister shall recruit, oversee, and direct The North Pacific Diplomatic Corps, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and The North Pacific Legal Code.
C - The Minister shall be responsible for initiating, directing and moderating debates on subjects of Regional and national interest specific to events located outside the region proper.
D- The Minister, in conjunction with the Prime Minister or the minister with appropriate jurisdiction, shall be responsible for the publication of the actions of the Regional Government, both within and outside of the Region.

5) Minister of Internal Affairs.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for moderating the Out-of-Character, Role-Playing and Games forums at the Regional off-site forums.
B - The Minister shall initiate and oversee activities and topics for the general entertainment of The North Pacific's member Nations.
C - The Minister shall encourage the Cultural and Educational arts and industries, protect The North Pacific's heritage, and advance the public information system of the Region in order to maximize their contribution to the region's awareness and social vitality.
D - The Minister shall be responsible for initiating, directing and moderating debates on subjects of Regional and national interest, such as UN proposals and resolutions.

7) Minister of Communications.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for initiating, directing and moderating debates on subjects of Regional and national interest, such as legislative and Cabinet issues within the Regional Government, UN proposals and resolutions, and general interest discussions.
B- The Minister, in conjunction with the Prime Minister or the minister with appropriate jurisdiction, shall be responsible for the publication of the actions of the Regional Government, both within and outside of the Region.
C- The Minister, unless required for specified identifiable reasons of regional security to withhold specific material (as determined in each instance by a majority vote of the Cabinet), shall provide the publication if full of the records and minutes of Cabinet proceedings and debates. The vote of the Prime Minister and each Cabinet Minister in a Cabinet meeting shall be a matter of public record.

8) Minister of Arts and Entertainment.
A - The Minister shall be responsible for moderating the Out-of-Character, Role-Playing and Games forums at the Regional off-site forums.
B - The Minister shall initiate and oversee activities and topics for the general entertainment of The North Pacific's member Nations.

9) Minister of Culture and Education.
A - The Minister shall encourage the Cultural and Educational arts and industries, protect The North Pacific's heritage, and advance the public information system of the Region in order to maximize their contribution to the region's awareness and social vitality.
Click to expand...


Maybe I'm just crazy but I think that if Flem wants to organize a constitutional convention now would be a good time to start. I think that something this significant gaining people's support is a sign that we need to revamp the whole thing and it was a part of his campaign promise.
 
There is such a thing as concentrating too much power. Decentralization prevents the abuse of power, just as excessive concentration (as in the NPD/NPG era) encourages and sanctions the abuse of too few having too much power.

I have reservations about removing the Minister of Communications position.

The emphasis of that ministry is supposed to be to communicate. (And that seems to be a frequent complaint these, the lack of communicating.)

As to Immigration and Internal Affairs, if the provisions already in the constitution and legal code were being fully followed, it could not handle the additional responsibilities of the abolished ministries.

Cpnsolidation might be in order, but I suspect it needs a different template for the consolidation of ministries within the Cabinet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top