Public Comment: State Code of Osiris

[Cormac]

This thread is for non-Councilors to comment on the State Code of Osiris draft.

Reference materials:

• Drafting Thread
• Informal Poll on Executive Selection

[r3naissanc3r]

Since there is a public comments thread, I thought I may post some comments of my own. Most of them are consistent with the suggestions I had made during the previous Osiris constitutional convention.

I indicate inline comments in italics and preceded by "N.B.", and mark new text with green, and removed text with strikethrough.

State Code of Osiris

N.B. Throughout the Code, I add text in several places to specify that only citizens may serve as this or that. We had problems with this in the past.

Section 1: Preamble

1. We, the Councilors of the Deshret, with the consent of the Pharaoh of Osiris, on behalf of the People of Osiris and for their general welfare, hereby establish the Osiris Fraternal Order. In order to provide for the stability and security of Osiris and the efficient operation of her government, we hereby establish this State Code of Osiris by which the Osiris Fraternal Order will be governed.

N.B. May make sense to rename this "Pharaoh and Executive of Osiris", since the section covers many more aspects of governance.

Section 2: Pharaoh of Osiris

N.B. Instead of prescribing ministers, I have generally found it a lot more flexible to explicitly give the head of government (Pharaoh) oversight of all the executive areas, and then allow them to appoint cabinet ministers (Scribes of the Hedjet) and delegate powers to them as they see fit. This provides for a very flexible Executive, while preserving the Pharaoh as the ultimate source of Executive power. I would recommend therefore restructuring this section as follows: I. listing all of the powers of the Delegate; and II. including a single section in the end dealing with delegation and appointment of Ministers. Here is one possibility (besides the removal of the prescribed Scribes, it is mostly a re-ordering):

1. The Pharaoh of Osiris will serve as the chief executive officer of Osiris, representing Osiris as Head of State and administering Osiris as Head of Government.

2. The Pharaoh will hold the in-game World Assembly (WA) Delegacy, will have the power to set a general endorsement limit for Osiris, and will have the power may use the in-game powers of the World Assembly in any way necessary to enforce all endorsement limits.

3. The Pharaoh will have the power, with the approval of the Deshret, to appoint and remove senior cabinet officials, styled Scribes of the Hedjet. Junior cabinet officials may be appointed at the discretion of the Pharaoh.

(a) The following are mandatory executive ministries which must have a Scribe assigned to oversee them: Integration, Foreign Affairs, Military Affairs, Culture, World Assembly Affairs, Security, and Justice.

4. The Pharaoh will have the power to further organize the executive branch of government and to further delegate executive powers and duties.

5.3. The Pharaoh will serve as commander-in-chief of the military forces of Osiris and will have the power to order and authorize deployments.

(a) The Pharaoh will have the power, with the approval of the Deshret, to declare war against other regions and organizations and to declare a cessation of war.

(b) The Pharaoh will be required to execute declarations of war and treaty obligations.

6.4. The Pharaoh will have the power to negotiate treaties with other regions, organizations, and groups on behalf of Osiris for submission to the Deshret.

7.5. The Pharaoh will have the power to sign or veto any legislation passed by the Deshret. If the Pharaoh neither signs nor vetoes legislation within seven days of its passage, it will automatically become law.

8.6. The Pharaoh will have the power, with the approval of the Deshret, to pardon or commute the sentence of any individual convicted of any criminal offense against Osiris.

9.7. The Pharaoh will have the power to approve or deny applications for citizenship, diplomatic recognition, and exchange of embassies according to the standards established by law.

10.8. The Pharaoh will appoint, with the approval of the Deshret, a citizen as Vizier. The Vizier will to serve as Vice Delegate of Osiris, holding the second most WA endorsements in the region.

N.B. In the following clause, it may make sense to provide for a definition of when the Delegate is considered automatically absent [usually, some criteria of inactivity].

(a) The Vizier of Osiris will serve as acting Pharaoh in the event of the Pharaoh's absence and will be vested with all powers of the Pharaoh for the duration of the Pharaoh's absence, but will not assume the in-game WA Delegacy except in the event of an emergency as certified by the Atef of Osiris.

N.B. I explain the reason for the following addition at the beginning of the next section.

(b) The Vizier will assume the position of Pharaoh in the event of the current Pharaoh's resignation or removal from office by means other than challenge election.

119. The Atef will serve as the security council of Osiris. The Pharaoh will appoint, with the approval of the Deshret, citizens to serve as Guardians of the Atef. Guardians of the Atef will be required to maintain WA nations in Osiris with high endorsement counts at all times.

(a) Guardians of the Atef may only exceed the general endorsement limit up to 66% of the Pharaoh's endorsement count or ten endorsements less than the Vizier's endorsement count, whichever is lower.

(b) The Pharaoh may at their discretion waive the Atef's endorsement limit during times of emergency and grant grace periods in regard to the Atef's endorsement limit during Pharaoh and Vizier transitions. The Pharaoh may rescind such waivers and grace periods at their discretion.

10. The Pharaoh will oversee and have authority over all other executive matters pertaining to integration, foreign affairs, military affairs, culture, World Assembly affairs, Security, and Justice.

11. The Pharaoh will have the power, with the approval of the Deshret, to appoint any citizen as and remove senior cabinet officials, styled Scribes of the Hedjet. The Pharaoh will have the power to appoint junior cabinet officials at their discretion. The Pharaoh will have the power to further organize the executive branch of government as they see fit.

12. The Pharaoh may delegate any of the powers and areas of oversight prescribed to them under this Section to officials in the executive branch of government. Such delegation does not affect the exercise by the Pharaoh of any such power or oversight.

Section 3: Election of the Pharaoh

N.B. There are some technical issues here: 1) Who becomes the "acting Pharaoh" in the event of a Pharaoh's removal or resignation? Section 2 mentions only that the Vizier becomes "acting Pharaoh" in the event of the "absence" of the Pharaoh. This to me appears to only cover the case when a Pharaoh does exist but is, e.g., busy in RL, and therefore does not apply here. 2) In the event of the Pharaoh's resignation or removal, does the acting Pharaoh also assume the in-game delegacy? Assuming that this is the same as the acting Pharaoh from Section 2, it would seem that no official is prescribed with holding the in-game delegacy until a new Pharaoh proper is elected. 3) The following section specifies what happens if a challenge election is brought against the acting Pharaoh, but does not specify what happens if no such challenge is brought. It seems that in this case the acting Pharaoh remains "acting" forever.

For simplification, I suggest the following: If the Pharaoh is removed or resigns, the Vizier becomes full Pharaoh, including the in-game delegacy. The only difference is that they are immediately subject to a challenge election. To effect this change, I added 10(b ) in Section 2, as well as changed the wording and reorganized below.

1. After a period of three months from the date of assuming office, the Pharaoh may be subject to a challenge election. Challenge elections will be administered by the Keeper of the Deshret and any Councilor may issue a challenge.

1. The Pharaoh may be subject to a challenge election when there has been a period exceeding three months since the last challenge election, or when there has been no no challenge election since the event of a Vizier assuming the office of Pharaoh after the resignation or removal from office of the preceding Pharaoh.

(a) Challenge elections will be administered by the Keeper of the Deshret and any Councilor may issue a challenge.

N.B. Does someone need to be nominated to stand? If yes, then it should be mentioned explicitly. Otherwise, we may as well skip mentioning nominations in the law; they can still be done by convention. In the following edit, I am assuming that the latter is the case (which is also my preference).

(a) Should (b) When a challenge election is initiated by the Deshret, a three day period for submission of candidacies will begin. Only citizens may submit a candidacy. The Pharaoh will not be barred from submitting a candidacy.

(c) At the conclusion of this submission period, the Keeper of the Deshret will determine eligible candidates according to eligibility standards established by law and open a four day voting period for a new Pharaoh to be elected by the Deshret.

N.B. This currently does not address the case of ties involving more than two candidates. I do not provide an alternative below, but a possible solution is as follows: all of the top tying candidates proceed to a run-off, and run-offs are held until one candidate achieves a simple majority of votes.

(d) Should no candidate receive a simple majority of votes cast in the election, the two candidates with the most votes will run as candidates in the same process established by Section 3.1(c) of this Code.

N.B. This is no longer necessary.

(d) Regardless of the success or failure of a challenge, no further challenge election will be held for three months from the date of the certification of voting results unless the Pharaoh resigns or is removed from office.

2. The Deshret will have the power to establish additional standards for challenge elections by law.

N.B. This is no longer necessary.

3. In the event that the Pharaoh resigns or is removed from office, the acting Pharaoh may be immediately subject to a challenge election. Should the acting Pharaoh win the challenge election they will become Pharaoh of Osiris.

N.B. The incumbent is now always Pharaoh proper, not acting.

3. The incumbent or acting Pharaoh will be charged with ensuring a speedy and safe transition of power whenever a new Pharaoh is elected.

N.B. The following two clauses seem a bit oddly placed here. Assuming that there is going to be a separate Criminal Code, I would move these there. There is no reason for treason to be specifically mentioned here.

(a) Any efforts by the incumbent or acting Pharaoh to deliberately deny the new Pharaoh their position as in-game WA Delegate will be considered a violation of this Code and treason, punishable by a maximum penalty of permanent ejection and ban from Osiris and permanent ban from the Osiris Fraternal Order forum.

(b) The Deshret will have the power to further define treason and penalties for other forms of treason by law.

Section 4: Deshret of Osiris

1. The Deshret of Osiris will be the legislative council of Osiris, open to all citizens of the Osiris Fraternal Order who maintain active involvement in the executive branch of government as certified by the Vizier.

(a) The Pharaoh and the Vizier will only be eligible for non-voting, advisory membership in the Deshret and may not serve as Keeper of the Deshret.

(b) The Deshret will have the power to establish additional standards for membership in the Deshret by law.

N.B. The addition below also covers the case when the Keeper resigns or is removed before the end of their term. A new Keeper is elected then for a full term.

2. The Deshret will elect from among its Councilors a Keeper of the Deshret whenever the position is vacant. The Keeper will serve a two month term as the presiding officer of the Deshret.

3. The Deshret will have the power to make and revise its own procedural rules.

4. The Deshret will have the power to pass any law that it determines is necessary and proper for the general welfare of the People of Osiris.

5. The Deshret will have the power to ratify treaties negotiated by the Pharaoh with other regions, organizations, and groups.

N.B. I am removing the term "supermajority" from below, as it is ill-defined; it's already specified as two-thirds majority, so the "super-" is redundant.

6. The Deshret will have the power to override the Pharaoh's veto by a two-thirds supermajority vote.

7. The Deshret will have the power to remove the Pharaoh from office by a three-quarters supermajority vote. The Deshret will have the power to remove any other government official from office by a two-thirds supermajority vote.

8. The Deshret will have the power to establish an additional Pharaonic line of succession beyond the Vizier of Osiris from among Guardians of the Atef.

9. Unless otherwise noted by this Code, all decisions by the Deshret will be made by simple majority vote.

N.B. This is to clarify: 1) that only a majority of those actually voting is required; and 2) that "abstain" votes do not count.

(a) The result of a vote will be determined by only taking into account members voting, and discounting any abstentions cast in the vote.

Section 5: Pschent of Osiris

1. The Pschent of Osiris will be the judicial council of Osiris, comprised of three Elders of the Pschent appointed by the Pharaoh with the approval of the Deshret. Elders of the Pschent will not serve in any other branch of government for the duration of their service on the Pschent.

2. The Pschent will have the power to make and revise its own procedural rules.

N.B. I have argued extensively in the past, including in Osiris' previous forum, against courts having the power of advisory opinions. Allowing the Pschent to have the power to "interpret the Code and laws" arguably empowers it to issue binding such advisory opinions. Below, I have removed this, and instead added a new clause 5 clarifying the interpretive powers of the Pschent.

I also usually support only allowing affected parties to petition the court for review, so below I have made a change to that effect.

3. The Pschent will have the power to interpret this Code and the laws of Osiris, to nullify any law or portion of law that contradicts this Code, and to order the cessation of any government action that violates this Code or the laws of Osiris. The Pschent may only exercise this power if petitioned to do so by an affected citizen of Osiris.

4. The Pschent will have the power to hear prosecution of alleged criminal offenses by the Scribe of Justice or their deputy, to decide guilt or the lack of it, and to determine penalties for guilty parties according to the standards established by law.

5. Decisions by the Pschent amount to interpretation of the law, and those decisions and interpretation are binding on the Pschent and all government bodies and officials.

5. 6. Unless otherwise noted by this Code, all decisions by the Pschent will be made by simple majority vote.

Section 6: Rights of Citizens

N.B. This partially overlaps with section 2, clause 7. I am doing some minor technical rewording here.

1. For the purposes of this Code, citizens will be defined as those applicants who have been accepted as citizens by the Pharaoh according to the standards established by law. Minimum requirements for attaining an applicant to attain citizenship are as follows:

(a) No applicant for citizenship will be accepted as a citizen if the applicant does not have a nation residing in Osiris.

(b) No applicant for citizenship will be accepted if the applicant, or any region, organization, or group of which the applicant is a member, has declared or engaged in hostility against the Osiris Fraternal Order since 10 December 2013, or if the applicant is part of a region, organization, or group against which the Osiris Fraternal Order has declared war, until the cessation of hostility or war or until the applicant has renounced membership in said region, organization, or group.

2. The following rights will be afforded to all citizens:

(a) Citizens will have the right to be secure in their citizenship according to the standards established by law.

(b) Citizens will have the right to be secure against ejection and/or ban from Osiris except as a temporary measure to enforce lawfully and publicly established endorsement limits. Citizens will have the right to be secure against ban from the Osiris Fraternal Order forum, though a citizen's access may be temporarily limited to the Pschent for the duration of criminal proceedings.

(c) Citizens will have the right to freedom of speech and expression, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by law which do not violate the spirit of this Code.

(d) Citizens will have the right to petition government officials in relation to all matters and to receive a prompt response to such petitions.

(e) Citizens will have the right to active involvement in the executive branch of government unless precluded by this Code.

(f) Citizens will have the right to apply for, stand for, vote for, and be appointed to government office provided they meet eligibility requirements imposed by law.

(g) Citizens will have the right, during all criminal prosecutions, to be informed of the cause of the action against them, and will enjoy a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. They will have the right to represent themselves or to be represented by counsel in a speedy, impartial, and public trial. Trial may proceed notwithstanding a defendant's absence provided that due notice has been given and the defendant's absence is beyond justification.

(h) Citizens will have the right to be secure against double jeopardy in relation to the prosecution of alleged criminal offenses.

(i) Citizens will have the right to be secure against ex post facto laws and bills of attainder.

(j) Citizens will have the right to due process of law and equal protection under the law.

(k) Citizens will have the right to be members of the WA or to decline WA membership, to be secure against requirement to endorse any WA nation, to be secure against any specialized endorsement limit below the general endorsement limit, and to be secure against punishment for endorsing any WA nation which has a number of endorsements below the endorsement limit lawfully and publicly established for that nation.

3. The rights established by Section 6.2(a)-(f) of this Code may be temporarily or permanently suppressed in whole or in part through criminal penalties imposed by the Pschent of Osiris, according to the standards established by law. The rights established by Section 6.2(g)-(k) of this Code may never be suppressed.

4. The establishment of rights by this Code will not be construed to restrict or prohibit the establishment of additional rights by law. No rights afforded to citizens by this Code will be construed to be afforded to non-citizen residents of Osiris.

Section 7: Forum Administration

1. The sole legally legitimate forum of Osiris is located at the following URL: https://osiris.valthost.com/index.php

2. Nothing in this Code or other laws of Osiris will be construed to abridge the power of the forum root administrator to grant or deny administrative or moderation power over this forum as they see fit.

N.B. Arguably the Terms of Service should also be included in the following clause and sub-clause.

3. The power of forum administration and moderation to enforce the Zetaboards Terms of Use and to establish and enforce additional terms of use related exclusively to forum security will supersede all other provisions of this Code and all laws of Osiris.

(a) Administrative and moderation action may be reviewed by the Pschent, by petition of any citizen or on its own initiative, exclusively to determine whether the action taken was necessary for enforcement of the Zetaboards Terms of Use and/or forum security.

Section 8: Amendment

1. The Deshret will have the power, by two-thirds majority vote and with the Pharaoh concurring, to amend this Code. The power of the Deshret to override the Pharaoh's veto will not be construed to apply to amendments to this Code.

2. The Keeper of the Deshret will be responsible for maintaining copies of the original and current versions of this Code and a publicly accessible list of all amendments made to this Code.

[Cormac]

To be blunt, I've been drinking Irish whiskey for hours so I'm not going to attempt to address this tonight. But I did want to thank you for the suggestions, and I'll look them over and respond tomorrow (or rather, later today).

[Cormac]

Hey r3n! Thanks again for your suggestions.

N.B. May make sense to rename this "Pharaoh and Executive of Osiris", since the section covers many more aspects of governance.

Good call, will edit.

N.B. Instead of prescribing ministers, I have generally found it a lot more flexible to explicitly give the head of government (Pharaoh) oversight of all the executive areas, and then allow them to appoint cabinet ministers (Scribes of the Hedjet) and delegate powers to them as they see fit. This provides for a very flexible Executive, while preserving the Pharaoh as the ultimate source of Executive power. I would recommend therefore restructuring this section as follows: I. listing all of the powers of the Delegate; and II. including a single section in the end dealing with delegation and appointment of Ministers. Here is one possibility (besides the removal of the prescribed Scribes, it is mostly a re-ordering):

This is normally how I would prefer to do it as well, but with membership in the Deshret being contingent upon active participation in the executive I think it's important to ensure that all of these ministries are available for participation. Otherwise, we could have a case of too few choices of ministries for everyone who wants to actively participate to be able to do so.

N.B. In the following clause, it may make sense to provide for a definition of when the Delegate is considered automatically absent [usually, some criteria of inactivity].

Good call here, too. I'll come up with some language for this.

12. The Pharaoh may delegate any of the powers and areas of oversight prescribed to them under this Section to officials in the executive branch of government. Such delegation does not affect the exercise by the Pharaoh of any such power or oversight.

I initially had some issues with this because I'm concerned it empowers the Pharaoh to delegate powers he really shouldn't delegate, but most of those powers also have a legislative check upon them and I think we can reasonably avoid abuse of this language.

N.B. There are some technical issues here: 1) Who becomes the "acting Pharaoh" in the event of a Pharaoh's removal or resignation? Section 2 mentions only that the Vizier becomes "acting Pharaoh" in the event of the "absence" of the Pharaoh. This to me appears to only cover the case when a Pharaoh does exist but is, e.g., busy in RL, and therefore does not apply here. 2) In the event of the Pharaoh's resignation or removal, does the acting Pharaoh also assume the in-game delegacy? Assuming that this is the same as the acting Pharaoh from Section 2, it would seem that no official is prescribed with holding the in-game delegacy until a new Pharaoh proper is elected. 3) The following section specifies what happens if a challenge election is brought against the acting Pharaoh, but does not specify what happens if no such challenge is brought. It seems that in this case the acting Pharaoh remains "acting" forever.

For simplification, I suggest the following: If the Pharaoh is removed or resigns, the Vizier becomes full Pharaoh, including the in-game delegacy. The only difference is that they are immediately subject to a challenge election. To effect this change, I added 10(b) in Section 2, as well as changed the wording and reorganized below.

Largely agreed with everything you've said here and the corresponding revisions to Sections 2 and 3. Will edit those into the draft. Thanks; I was concerned that we hadn't quite finished fleshing out the challenge election system but I wasn't sure what still needed done.

N.B. The following two clauses seem a bit oddly placed here. Assuming that there is going to be a separate Criminal Code, I would move these there. There is no reason for treason to be specifically mentioned here.

This was my initial reaction as well, but then it occurred to me that it's quite possible there won't be a Criminal Code by the time the State Code passes and an election for Pharaoh is held. Still, I largely agree that defining crimes is better left for statutory law so I'm leaning toward editing this out.

N.B. I have argued extensively in the past, including in Osiris' previous forum, against courts having the power of advisory opinions. Allowing the Pschent to have the power to "interpret the Code and laws" arguably empowers it to issue binding such advisory opinions. Below, I have removed this, and instead added a new clause 5 clarifying the interpretive powers of the Pschent.

I also usually support only allowing affected parties to petition the court for review, so below I have made a change to that effect.

Aye, I'm against advisory opinions as well. Decisions on constitutionality and legality should be made in binding rulings of the Court; advisory opinions just prejudice the Court if they later have to make a binding ruling, and the practice of making so-called "advisory opinions" binding in other regions is an odd way to go about this because there often isn't a formal argumentation process and such opinions aren't advisory if they're binding. Your new language here makes how the Court should go about interpreting the State Code and laws of Osiris clearer, so I'll edit it in.

N.B. Arguably the Terms of Service should also be included in the following clause and sub-clause.

Good catch, thanks, and thanks again for all your suggestions!