A convention I think wouldn't take much more of a different form than what the RA does now. We had a separate forum for constitutional changes last time, but other than that it was no different.
I think a lot of people recognized that the current constitution was an improvement on the old one, a slight improvement, though not everything was ironed out completely. I think it was Blue Wolf who labelled it as little more than the changing of a few words around, rather than the wholesale change that some people wanted because it was a battleground with some of the slight changes. (not saying I necessary agree with that - but that view was raised)
There are several ways wholesale change could be achieve, we could go through what we did last time, have a thread that discusses each major issue and then a final proposal for that particular section is drafted out and added to the working draft of the constitution. This was a lengthy process, and did yield some results.
The other option is for someone to draft a new constitution and post the complete document and get input here. I think that could work better.
Most of the issues I think people have relate to cultural problems. I do think that we have some members of the Regional Assembly that like to cause trouble for the sake of causing trouble. We are a massively democratic and open region, that will happen sometimes. We do however need to balance our democratic and openness with the ability to protect ourselves as a region.
Other than that, people run to the courts a lot and then get very annoyed when they don't get the answer they want. Can this be changed via legislation? I'm not sure. Seems like a cultural change to me. People need to be more willing to discuss things first before running to the court, and sometimes getting input into what the sections mean, before we have review after review after the review. Dare I say it, but the Fiqh is a good opportunity for people to discuss and to work out differences that they have, not legally binding sure - but its there for people to make use of.
We have also removed the ability of the AG to refuse to take on cases that have no merit whatsoever. This is largely because of the actions of Grosseschnauzer when he was Attorney General - can we find a balance to prevent so many things going to the courts?
Secondly, the recall process. Most of our recall's fail by huge margins. Why do we propose recalls over trivial things? People propose recalls and often vote against their own proposal. I frankly don't get it. This is a cultural issue, people want to recall over minor things. What else can be done to achieve the accountability that people desire when they have a disagreement? What alternative could there be?
Improving the constitution and legal code is a great idea - it's the getting there that can be a headache?
