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Excerpts From the Constitution of Medala
🕑 Added 2023-01-22 19:19:49 +0000 UTCHello there.
No new chapter today. Instead, here's some extended excerpts from Medala's new constitution, the one introduced in Chapter 371 - Miracle.
I've been going back and forth on most of this several times, so I'm sorta text blind to it all right now. So there's a good chance that this thing is full of simple mistakes and typos. I'll fix them as I spot them.
You'll also notice that I didn't write down some of the more common basic rights, but only included the more interesting/unique stuff here. Just assume that anything obvious is written down in the actual thing. Note that I also included obligations on equal footing with rights, which is something that's either missing or unreasonably lumped together with the rights in most constitutions.
Anything I put here is subject to change, of course.
Oh, finally: I make almost no mention of the government institutions here, which would come later in the actual document. I'll probably just put together a diagram of that at a later date, maybe some time next week, if you're interested. Since it's essentially an absolute monarchy, it won't be too complicated or interesting anyways, with the exception of the newly added high court.
Now then, I think I've wasted everyone's time enough. Please enjoy.
Preamble: Based on an exchange of ideas, the people of Medala have collectively agreed that these following fundamental rights are true, logical and self-evident: All humans are born of the natural world, free and equal, with a right to pursue personal personal growth as they see fit. As inherent human rights, the following shall apply to all humans who live within the borders of Medala.
INHERENT RIGHTS
Article 1:
a) All humans are born free and equal, through their very nature.
b) As such, all citizens shall not be distinguished in front of the law, wherever possible.
c) Their freedom shall not be impeded, unless said freedom impedes the freedom or safety of other citizens, or threatens the stability of the institutions laid out in this document.
Definition: For the purposes of this document, a human shall be a sentient being with the capability of complex communication with other citizens. This definition shall be refined further as problems arise.
Article ():
a) Inherent in the nature of all humans is a pursuit of betterment and personal growth.
b) As such, no laws shall be made which limits such pursuit for the individual, unless said individual's pursuit unduly limits the pursuits of others or directly violates the RIGHTS and OBLIGATIONS laid out in this document.
Article ():
a) All humans arise from nature. As such, all humans have a right to a basic education, so that they may strive to understand nature in all its facets
b) Such scientific pursuit shall not be inhibited or limited by law, unless said scientific pursuit directly violates other RIGHTS and OBLIGATIONS laid out in this document.
Article ():
a) As natural beings, all humans have an inherent instinct to connect with nature.
b) As such, access to nature shall be guaranteed for all citizens wherever possible.
c) Nature is to be protected and preserved.
INHERENT OBLIGATIONS
Article 1:
a) As citizens who enjoy all rights granted by this document, said citizens are equally required to adhere to all obligations laid out therein.
b) Any violation of said obligations shall be considered a criminal act, and may lead to a temporary or permanent suspension of several or all INHERENT RIGHTS, up to the suspension of citizenship.
Article 2:
a) As an institution naturally formed by humans for the purpose of mutual protection and security, the state's first requirement shall be its continued existence, as well as the continued fulfillment of its functions as laid out in this document.
Article 3:
a) As an institution naturally formed by humans for the purpose of mutual protection and security, the state's second requirement shall be the security of its borders.
b) As such, all adult citizens shall be required to serve in said protection, either directly or indirectly.
Article ():
a) The state's paramount function shall be to provide public goods to its citizens. Public goods shall include, but are not limited to, security of the border, security of the state's institutions, fire prevention and fire fighting services, access to clean air, drinking water, or nature, as well as all forms of infrastructure. This list shall be expanded as necessary.
b) All citizens benefit from public goods by its very definition. As such, they shall be required to finance said public goods. A failure to make use of specific public goods by individual citizens shall not recuse said citizens from financial obligations.
c) Any exploitation of public goods by private citizens to the detriment of any public good or to the detriment of other private citizens shall be considered a violation of an INHERENT OBLIGATION.
Definition: Public goods shall be services or material objects which support citizens in their pursuits, either directly or indirectly, and are available to every citizen without limitations, beyond those laid out in this document.
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS
………
Some additional notes:
Unfortunately, patreon is trash, so it won't keep the formatting of the text. Just imagine everything is center aligned.
'Article ()' means that I didn't want to nail down a specific number for this article. While the order technically shouldn't matter, it totally does in reality.
Definitions are added in the constitution to prevent some legalese shenanigans (like how corporations are people in the US). Though I'm unhappy specifically with the definition of human, since cleanly defining it while including everything I want without adding anything I don't want is way too tough a task. I might update this part later if I ever come up with something better.
The mention of 'Medala' in the preamble technically includes the north as well, since 'Southern Medala' isn't mentioned once. So the document technically claims to speak for all medalans, which has some interesting implications on legitimacy.
The establishment of a high court is mentioned later in the constitution, in the portion about public institutions.
There is no direct mention of god or religion in the entire document. The only vague mention is the nebulous connection between 'nature', humans and science, basically making peace between the Pacha religion (which reveres nature), and empirical science (which aims to understand nature), before any problems can arise in the future.
Both the importance of money and property rights are heavily de-emphasized in the constitution. Although basic property rights are still guaranteed, excessive wealth almost guarantees that the rich guy will violate several points of the constitution.
The emphasis on individual freedom and equality implies a ban on slavery. Forced labor for prisoners is expressly not banned, as the kingdom is still heavily dependent on it, an ugly compromise Corco should hate.
The emphasis on nature makes sense culturally, but obviously foreshadows a huge conflict point once an industrial revolution gets going.
Comments
As far as possible, yes. Though there are obvious limitations to that, especially when it comes to men and women. Women just have a natural disadvantage when it comes to careers, since they have to stop working whenever they have kids. You can't just get rid of that issue with mandated quotas. In the same vein, you don't want half your combat force to be women, for obvious reasons. Those are things which, I think, shouldn't be made equal, since any attempt will only produce a mess. However, I think a fair solution is possible in either case. Now that I think about it, maybe the term fairness is just generally better than equality, though it isn'T as universal and comes with its own problems. I'll have to think about this a bit more.
The definition of human specifically includes non-homo sapiens, yes. At least it's theoretically to give someone like that citizenship. With the definition, I wanted to include edge cases like babies and comatose patients, while excluding animals for the most part (I thought people would agree that babies and the comatose would be 'capable of complex communication' in theory, while most would disagree about animals. It's not great, I don't think.) Also, I didn't want to rely on stuff like chromosomes, since you'll end up with weird edge cases that way as well, and I don't want to base the document on science which doesn't really exist yet. Yes, forced labor is legal according to the document, but Corco as a humanist and idealist just wouldn't like it for personal reasons. I wanted to avoid specific terms that group people in any way as much as possible, including gender. I have an idea on the issue of service for women, which will show up in a later chapter. Feel free to speculate. ;)
Michael Vonica
Also, what is your view on equality? It states here that all people are to be treated equally, but it isn't exactly true that all people are equal. The goal should be to make everyone in the society as equal as possible, but there will always be people with more disadvantages or advantages than others. Will the constitution promise to take these differences into consideration?
Michael Vonica
I'd like to hear more about your definition of human. I can definitely see some room left in there for artificial creations to be seen as human. Wondering about what other complex details I'm missing. The suspension of rights as a form of punishment should cover forced labor, right? There isn't any specification on gender. I suppose this leaves open the possibility of women serving in the military. Of course, there is the option for indirect service. But I felt this was connecting to the idea of all citizens being required to have military training.
