FD: Revise RA Registration Procedures

[Grosseschnauzer]

Proposed by Grosseschnauzer:

Constitutional Amendment concerning the registration process for Regional Assembly membership.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE NATIONS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC, that Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution be amended to read as follows such amendment to take effect upon ratification under Article VII of the Constitution;

Section 2. Registration.

In the interest of Regional security, member Nations shall be required to register prior to participation or voting in with the Regional Assembly prior to voting in Regional elections or referenda, as prescribed by the following procedures:

1) As used in this Section, or elsewhere in reference to this Section, “registration officials” refers to The Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Regional Assembly, the Court of the North Pacific, the Regional off-site forum administrators, and any other officials of the Regional Government deemed necessary to the registration and continuous eligibility procedures in this Section.

2) 1) The registration officials Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs shall oversee the process of registration, aided by the Prime Minister and the Regional off-site forum administrators and any other support personnel of the Regional Government deemed necessary are empowered to conduct investigations and make inquiries deemed necessary for the continuing enforcement of the member eligibility and other requirements for the Regional Assembly of The North Pacific voter registration provisions outlined as provided in this Constitution, The North Pacific Legal Code, or other laws enacted pursuant to this Constitution.

2) 3) Nations that reside in The North Pacific and who agree to abide by the member Nation requirements outlined in Article II, Section 1, of this Constitution will request Regional Assembly membership at the Regional off-site forum by posting a request in a thread for that exclusive purpose, created by the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs.

3) 4) In their request, Nations will be required to post a link to their TNP member Nation and their UN member Nation at NationStates.net, and in doing so, verify that they have taken the following oath:

"I, (Forum Name), as the leader of the (Official Full National Name), pledge to obey the Constitution and Laws of The North Pacific Region, and to act as a responsible member of its society.  I understand that if my Nation leaves The North Pacific region for reasons other than participation in North Pacific Army deployments that I may be stripped of my right to vote and required to reapply.  I pledge to only register one Nation to vote in The North Pacific.  I understand that my registration of, or attempt to register, multiple Nations to vote in The North Pacific shall warrant the summary withdrawal of my right to vote from all my Nations, past, present, and future, as well as possible expulsion from the Region. I understand that if any nation under my control directly wages war against the North Pacific, or allies themselves with a region waging war, declared or not, against the North Pacific, this shall warrant the summary withdrawal of my right to vote from all my Nations, past, present, and future, as well as possible expulsion from the Region. In this manner, I petition the Regional Government of The North Pacific region for membership in the Regional Assembly."

4) The Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs, the Prime Minister, the Regional off-site forum administrators, and any other support personnel of the Regional Government deemed necessary are empowered to conduct investigations and make inquiries deemed necessary for the enforcement of The North Pacific voter registration provisions outlined in this Constitution, The North Pacific Legal Code, or other laws enacted pursuant to this Constitution.

5) A member Nation must immediately inform the registration officials of any changes as to the identity of its Nation residing in The North Pacific or its UN member nation in the Nationstates United Nations.

5) 6) Once any investigations or inquiries are completed, the registration officials The Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs shall expeditiously process each such registration request, and shall place any Nation accepted as a member of the Regional Assembly in a public listing of current members maintained for that purpose at the Regional off-site forum.

6) 7) At any time, should sufficient evidence be brought to the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs or other registration officials that proves that a Regional Assembly Member fails to meet the requirements for membership due to the deletion of a Nation from NationStates through inactivity or NationStates Moderator intervention, that Nation's name may be purged from the list of members. Should a Nation, whose membership has been purged, later be found to have been resurrected in NationStates, or that the Nation become a member of the Region once again, they may re-apply for voting rights membership.

according to the procedures in the preceding clauses of this Section. The act of expulsion or banning of a Nation from the Region on other grounds prior to a trial or a referendum does not affect its status as a member until and unless a final judgment is entered in a judicial proceeding or a final certification is entered in a referendum, whichever is applicable to the given situation. The North Pacific Legal Code may provide authority to the registration officials Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs for the periodic purging of the names of member who are no longer eligible to vote in the Region be members of the Regional Assembly, upon due notice because they no longer meet the membership requirements of this Section.

 

[Haor Chall]

The forum admins are not members of the government. I think, particularly considering the move to restrict peoples ability to join the RA, widening the number of people who can accept RA applications seems a little odd. It also seems to undermine the MoIIA when normally that forms a large part of their job, as it isn't specifying that these others can do the job if the MoIIA isn’t around (which wouldn’t be so much of an issue IMO).

I just don’t really see what this has to do with the forum admins, the court or the speaker. I just find it particularly peculiar, considering that the forum admin and the court are supposed to be separate from the political parts of government, to have them included in this as well. If it just specified the PM, presumably the DMoIIA (who strangely isn’t mentioned) then I wouldn’t have so much of an issue with this. Or if it specified that these others (Speaker, etc) can get involved if the MoIIA isn’t around or something than that also would be ok. But otherwise I think this change goes a little too far in allowing all sorts of random parts of the government to decide something which isn’t really part of there normal sphere.

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

Access to certain information to verify identity in the registration process is, and always has been in the hands of forum administration.

Given the problems that have existed with maintaining the privacy of that information, the logical thing to do is to not rely on elected ministers or their appointed deputies to be ablle to access that particular information. The chance from the current approach is that the process will rely on forum administration to have the primary acess to that element of eligibility verification, rather than give access to elected Ministers or their appointed Deputies.

The inclusion of the Court and the Speaker as part of the group of registration officials is to give them the means to insure that they have the most current information about who is properly on the Regional Assembly member list.

The Court uses that information for jury selection lists and to summon jurors for service as a trial juror or grand juror, which can arise at any time. The Regional Assembly may be involved with a vote at any time. The Speaker needs to be able to verify that those who vote in the Regional Assemby at any given time remain qualified to vote within the Regional Assembly.

Since the problems with the system prevented any confidene that the information is continuously accurate, and because we've had Ministers of Immigration and Internal Affairs and their drputies who failed to maintain a continuously accurate list of Regional Assembly members, the obvious solution is to give authority to the Court and the Speaker to participate in the continuous eligibility verification process, and have the authority to act when there is factual evidence of ineligibility.

We cannot assume that we're always going to have a Nersfold or an Erastride in that seat, so we need to have a system that is less dependent on one person's willingness or unwillingness to do their job.

 

[Romanoffia (Guest)]

I agree in principal to the premise and effect of the amendment, but I also agree with HC that this tends to give governmental authority in acts to the forum administration.

In order for this to fall into line with the Constitution, it might be suggested that forum administration be a regularly elected status. But that creates a problem of creating a certain set of criteria as to who is qualified to be an admin in technical terms.

A more detailed clarification of admin roles as per the Consititution might be advisable.

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

Forum administration has always had a role in the registration process from the time it was instituted.

The old forum was approved by a referendum of the region, and the change to this forum was approved by a referendum of the region.

There isn't really any reason to add more about forum administration beyond what we have. Only administrators have normal access to private information (not even the global moderators here have access to that information).

Making forum administration a political office would be a big mistake.

 

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

Making forum administration a political office would be a big mistake.

Why?

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

If for no other reason, then the forum admin's access to private information should be a sufficient reason for concern.

 

[Great Bights Mum]

6) 7) At any time, should sufficient evidence be brought to the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs or other registration officials that proves that a Regional Assembly Member fails to meet the requirements for membership due to the deletion of a Nation from NationStates through inactivity or NationStates Moderator intervention for any reason, that Nation's name may be purged from the list of members.

I have no objections to the proposal except for the section quoted above. It's the phrase, "for any reason" that is troublesome. It could be subject to a much broader interpretation than is intended. In order to safeguard the rights of TNP nations against possible abuse, I suggest the reasons for such an action be enumerated.

If the language is left as it is, this amendment will not have my support.

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

What language would you want to have included in its place? Juat taking out the three words would permit removal without any reason, which I believe is not what you are trying to accomplish, so please suggest something.

 

[Haor Chall]

Access to certain information to verify identity in the registration process is, and always has been in the hands of forum administration.

Given the problems that have existed with maintaining the privacy of that information, the logical thing to do is to not rely on elected ministers or their appointed deputies to be ablle to access that particular information. The chance from the current approach is that the process will rely on forum administration to have the primary acess to that element of eligibility verification, rather than give access to elected Ministers or their appointed Deputies.

The forum administration can provide the information the MoIIA requires to them, I don't see the issue. Forum admin is forum admin, the regional government is the regional government. Blurring the two of them, by giving the forum admins such a role seems a little, well, wrong to me. It isn't that I don't like our forum admins, or any such thing, but they have their job to do and the government has its job to do. Handing some of the governments (i.e. In Character) jobs shouldn't be something that forum admin (i.e Out of Character) should have that kind of involvement in IMHO.

The inclusion of the Court and the Speaker as part of the group of registration officials is to give them the means to insure that they have the most current information about who is properly on the Regional Assembly member list.

The Court uses that information for jury selection lists and to summon jurors for service as a trial juror or grand juror, which can arise at any time. The Regional Assembly may be involved with a vote at any time. The Speaker needs to be able to verify that those who vote in the Regional Assemby at any given time remain qualified to vote within the Regional Assembly.

Well the MoIIA is supposed to provide that information for them. I don't see your point. Members of the DC and the NPA have to be part of the RA, so by that logic shouldn't the MoD and MoEA be registration officials as well?

Since the problems with the system prevented any confidene that the information is continuously accurate, and because we've had Ministers of Immigration and Internal Affairs and their drputies who failed to maintain a continuously accurate list of Regional Assembly members, the obvious solution is to give authority to the Court and the Speaker to participate in the continuous eligibility verification process, and have the authority to act when there is factual evidence of ineligibility.

We cannot assume that we're always going to have a Nersfold or an Erastride in that seat, so we need to have a system that is less dependent on one person's willingness or unwillingness to do their job.

Well, what if we have a MoEA who doesn't do anything with the DC, a MoD who doesn't do anything with the NPA? Or even, since it seems that every other PM apart from you has failed in their oversight of the NPIA, shouldn't we not change that, since we cannot apparently rely on the PM to fulfill that function properly?

That is a pointless arguement. We elect the MoIIA to deal with registration. If they fail to do their job they should be removed. The same applies to all aspects of the regional government and all elected ministries. What should happen is a Minister failing to do their duty should be impeached. So what needs to be done is sorted out the procedures so that impeachment can happen quickly so that it isn't a waste of time. This legislation is pointless in the extreme and undermines the whole point of our system, since ultimately your argument seems to be that we cannot rely on our elected officials to do their jobs.

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

As i noted before, the inclusion of forum administration has been a part of this system since the registration system was introduced.

The constitution also requires that there can be no change in the location of the official forum without approval of a majority of the regional assembly membership, so in effect, the region does "choose" our forum administration. (It's been a matter that has been voted on twice in the past year and a half.) I think it is better to acknowledge that forum administration plays a role in the process rather than to pretend that, like in the Wizard of Oz, we should be told to just ignore that it's there. Further, we've more than one Minister whose primary job is related to forum administration. One reason I've appointed a Ministry Study Commission is to look at that point with respect to three of the current Ministries in the Cabinet; and to see whether those functions should remain with a Cabinet Minister or return to forum administration without government participation.

Given that government officials are given moderation powers throughout different areas of the forum and have a responsibility as forum moderators to enforce forum rules and ToS, to suggest that forum administration does not overlap with government responsibilities is just silly.

Now, dealing with Ministers of Immigration and Internal Affairs who refuse to do their duties is a more complex problem. First, the problem that is presented to the Court and the Regional Assembly in fulfilling their functions when they do not have a current list of Regional Assembly members who maintain their eligibility to be members.

When there are members kept on the list who do not meet the requirement, it slows down Court proceedings and it creates artifically high threshold numbers for certain type of actions within the Regional Assembly. It can even cause problems in the Security Council where the number of seats is based upon the total number of Regional Assembly members.

Should the Minister of External Affairs or the Minister of Defense be involved?
There's been no evidence that I'm aware of that they've had the same sort of problems that the Court and the Regional Assembly has had as a result of outdated information. Both ministries have independent requirements in addition to RA membership that give those ministries the means to make sure the NPA and the DC have currently eliible members. if there are issues being caused by out-of-date information for either group, I'll be glad to take a look at it; a separate proposal can always be beought forth later.

 

[Great Bights Mum]

What language would you want to have included in its place? Juat taking out the three words would permit removal without any reason, which I believe is not what you are trying to accomplish, so please suggest something.

RA members should be removed from the rolls if they cease to exist, or if they leave TNP and do not have a different nation residing in TNP. Can anyone think of other specific reasons for the removal of an RA member?

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

What language would you want to have included in its place? Juat taking out the three words would permit removal without any reason, which I believe is not what you are trying to accomplish, so please suggest something.

RA members should be removed from the rolls if they cease to exist, or if they leave TNP and do not have a different nation residing in TNP. Can anyone think of other specific reasons for the removal of an RA member?

The only problem would be if the TNP nation still in the region has not been provided to the registration officials as the replacement TNP nation. If the information has not been provided, then there's nothing to show eligbility has been retained.

I'll agree to take the three words out.

6) 7) At any time, should sufficient evidence be brought to the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs or other registration officials that proves that a Regional Assembly Member fails to meet the requirements for membership due to the deletion of a Nation from NationStates through inactivity or NationStates Moderator intervention, that Nation's name may be purged from the list of members. Should a Nation, whose membership has been purged, later be found to have been resurrected in NationStates, or that the Nation become a member of the Region once again, they may re-apply for voting rights membership

 

[Great Bights Mum]

Thank you.

 

[mr_sniffles]

Vote soon.

 

[Ermarian]

Question for clarification: Does this proposal, in fact, change anything besides wording the text more efficiently? I read through the legalese jungle, but I didn't see anything and I'm paranoid .

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

The major change is to allow the Speaker and the Court to directly share authority with the Minister of Immigration and Internal Affairs, the Prime Minister and the other named personnel to process and approve RA applications, and to help with verifying and maintaining the list of current RA members.

Every thing else is basically editing the formal language to reflect the way the process actually works in practice. There were also a few places that referred to registered voters which were not changed when the class of registered voters were merged into Regional Assembly membership.