Second Amendment to the Militia Act

[Cormac]

The Militia Act will be amended to read as follows:

1. Citizen-Sergeant
1. The Citizen-Sergeant will strategically lead the Taijitu Citizens' Militia and will act as military advisor to the Ecclesia.
2. Any citizen of Taijitu may stand for election to the office of Citizen-Sergeant.
3. An election for Citizen-Sergeant will be held when three months have passed since the last election, the Ecclesia chooses to hold an election by a majority vote, or the office of Citizen-Sergeant is vacant.
4. No person may serve as Citizen-Sergeant for more than two consecutive terms.
5. The Ecclesia may remove the Citizen-Sergeant by a majority vote.

2. Militia Organization
1. The Citizen-Sergeant may approve or reject applications to join the Militia. Rejections may be appealed to the Ecclesia.
2. The Citizen-Sergeant may delineate rank and responsibility within the Militia.
3. The Citizen-Sergeant will be empowered to order military actions, and to delegate this power to a chain of command within the Militia.
4. When the office of Citizen-Sergeant is vacant, leadership of the Militia will pass to the chain of command as established by the prior Citizen-Sergeant for the duration of the vacancy.
5. All military operations lasting longer than three major in-game updates must be approved by the Ecclesia by a two-thirds majority vote.

3. Regional Alignment
1. The alignment of the Citizens' Democracy of Taijitu will be neutral in regard to gameplay divisions.
2. Taijitu will remain open and welcoming to nations without regard to gameplay political, ideological, or military alignment, or level of interest in gameplay.
3. Taijitu will continue to bear the onsite tag "Neutral" to reflect this regional alignment.

4. Militia Alignment
1. The alignment of the Taijitu Citizens' Militia will be regional sovereigntist.
2. The fundamental aims of the Taijitu Citizens' Militia will be to pursue the interests of Taijitu through military activity and to defend and uphold regional sovereignty.
3. The Taijitu Citizens' Militia will execute all interregional military mandates agreed to by the Ecclesia, including but not necessarily limited to treaties and declarations of war.
4. The Taijitu Citizens' Militia will be respectful of regional sovereignty and will be barred from invading peaceful regions absent a mandate agreed to by the Ecclesia.
5. The Taijitu Citizens' Militia will be empowered to invade regions that violate the sovereignty of peaceful regions, without a specific mandate to do so and at the discretion of the Citizen-Sergeant.

After the previous amendment to the Militia Act passed, I noticed several other issues:

1. The Citizen-Sergeant is the only official whose term is four months, rather than three, but has no consecutive term limit.
2. The Citizen-Sergeant is the only official barred from holding any other public office.
3. There is no process for approval and rejection of applications to join the Militia.
4. There's no explicit permission to let the chain of command order military operations, and no procedure for command during Citizen-Sergeant vacancies.

The above draft deals with these issues and makes the Militia Act more consistent with the way we handle other offices such as Citizen-Delegate and Citizen-Initiator. Your feedback is appreciated.

[Khem]

I approve of this as it stands.

[Delfos]

I disagree with most of this amendment:

1. I agree with shorter term limits.

2. Office holding, specially by the Citizen-Sergeant, should not be like a stamp collection, the idea behind the Ecclesia is that it can govern itself, without executive offices, meanwhile we've done many, but all of them directly linked with Ecclesia, and I keep saying offices should be filled only in need, there should be the option of vacancy. Either way, I think it's against revolutionary principles that one person should portray many or more than one offices, and if it must, I feel the Sergeant one should continue to be barred, one should not be able to broker treaties that may result in military operations AND lead such military operations, seems to be a conflict of interests. Maybe be barred from being a diplomat or delegate if you wish, but I must rather the current approach.

3. I don't think there should be any form of approval or rejection to the militia. Any citizen should be able to participate. The militia should be participatory, not a list of military ranks and obligations.

4. I already expressed my disapproval of ranks or chains-of-command, and chains-of-command cannot be legislated if it is the Sergeant who delineates the ranks out of whim. He may not delegate ranks at all, ranks do not exist in our legislature, so they are atm term-delegated. Speaking of ranks that may or may not exist might create conflict when there is no ranks or applicable "chain-of-command". No, don't put ranks into legislation, just throw away all that crap because we don't really need it.

[Cormac]

2. Office holding, specially by the Citizen-Sergeant, should not be like a stamp collection, the idea behind the Ecclesia is that it can govern itself, without executive offices, meanwhile we've done many, but all of them directly linked with Ecclesia, and I keep saying offices should be filled only in need, there should be the option of vacancy. Either way, I think it's against revolutionary principles that one person should portray many or more than one offices, and if it must, I feel the Sergeant one should continue to be barred, one should not be able to broker treaties that may result in military operations AND lead such military operations, seems to be a conflict of interests. Maybe be barred from being a diplomat or delegate if you wish, but I must rather the current approach.

I agree with you that the Citizen-Sergeant should be barred from serving in other elected offices, but I don't agree that it is the only office that should be barred from it. The Citizen-Initiator and Citizen-Delegate should be barred from serving in other offices as well, and currently they aren't. I've talked with al' Khem about separate legislation to deal with separation of powers and I think he's going to be working on that.

3. I don't think there should be any form of approval or rejection to the militia. Any citizen should be able to participate. The militia should be participatory, not a list of military ranks and obligations.

A raider being "able to participate" in a Militia that is legally only permitted to defend regions in most cases is very problematic. We could have raiders apply for citizenship here for the sole purpose of joining the Militia and spying on it, with the Citizen-Sergeant being unable to prevent them from joining the Militia. That is a very bad idea.

4. I already expressed my disapproval of ranks or chains-of-command, and chains-of-command cannot be legislated if it is the Sergeant who delineates the ranks out of whim. He may not delegate ranks at all, ranks do not exist in our legislature, so they are atm term-delegated. Speaking of ranks that may or may not exist might create conflict when there is no ranks or applicable "chain-of-command". No, don't put ranks into legislation, just throw away all that crap because we don't really need it.

We really do, actually, considering that Bustos previously made the argument that only the Citizen-Sergeant could order operations, which means anytime the Citizen-Sergeant isn't here the Militia couldn't legally do anything. We've also seen the problem here with the recent resignation, because technically nobody in the Militia has any legal power to order operations when there's a vacancy in the office of Citizen-Sergeant, which could be construed as meaning the Militia can't do anything for the duration of the vacancy. The approach you're suggesting is an approach that could leave the Militia unable to do anything for long periods of time.

[Lindisfarne]

Hi all,

I agree with Comac's original draft, with one exception; The Citizen-Sergeant should still be barred from serving in other elected offices. However, I think it is not the only office that should be barred from it. The Citizen-Initiator and Citizen-Delegate should be barred from serving in other offices as well.

Limiting the term to two cosecutive may perhaps be good, but if we get a person devoted to the militia (it could be argued that this is a specialist employment, rather than an ordinary elected office) perhaps he should be allowed to stay on longer. After all, he could be voted out of office at any election. One argument for this is that if the Citizen-Sergeant can not do anyting else, and he is very active, he will become a valued specialist we would like to keep in office.  Just a thought, but I think it should be considered.

Linda

[Khem]

I am drafting legislation for a wide sweeping separation of powers to address that concern. Hopefully will be up by tomorrow. We have multiple offices which will need it.

[Cormac]

I don't want to get rid of the two consecutive term limit for any elected officer. The goal in the Militia should be training others to also be competent enough to lead it, anyway, so as we move forward we should never have a situation in which only one person is qualified to be Citizen-Sergeant.

[Myroria]

2. Office holding, specially by the Citizen-Sergeant, should not be like a stamp collection, the idea behind the Ecclesia is that it can govern itself, without executive offices, meanwhile we've done many, but all of them directly linked with Ecclesia, and I keep saying offices should be filled only in need, there should be the option of vacancy. Either way, I think it's against revolutionary principles that one person should portray many or more than one offices, and if it must, I feel the Sergeant one should continue to be barred, one should not be able to broker treaties that may result in military operations AND lead such military operations, seems to be a conflict of interests. Maybe be barred from being a diplomat or delegate if you wish, but I must rather the current approach.

I agree with you that the Citizen-Sergeant should be barred from serving in other elected offices, but I don't agree that it is the only office that should be barred from it. The Citizen-Initiator and Citizen-Delegate should be barred from serving in other offices as well, and currently they aren't. I've talked with al' Khem about separate legislation to deal with separation of powers and I think he's going to be working on that.

3. I don't think there should be any form of approval or rejection to the militia. Any citizen should be able to participate. The militia should be participatory, not a list of military ranks and obligations.

A raider being "able to participate" in a Militia that is legally only permitted to defend regions in most cases is very problematic. We could have raiders apply for citizenship here for the sole purpose of joining the Militia and spying on it, with the Citizen-Sergeant being unable to prevent them from joining the Militia. That is a very bad idea.

4. I already expressed my disapproval of ranks or chains-of-command, and chains-of-command cannot be legislated if it is the Sergeant who delineates the ranks out of whim. He may not delegate ranks at all, ranks do not exist in our legislature, so they are atm term-delegated. Speaking of ranks that may or may not exist might create conflict when there is no ranks or applicable "chain-of-command". No, don't put ranks into legislation, just throw away all that crap because we don't really need it.

We really do, actually, considering that Bustos previously made the argument that only the Citizen-Sergeant could order operations, which means anytime the Citizen-Sergeant isn't here the Militia couldn't legally do anything. We've also seen the problem here with the recent resignation, because technically nobody in the Militia has any legal power to order operations when there's a vacancy in the office of Citizen-Sergeant, which could be construed as meaning the Militia can't do anything for the duration of the vacancy. The approach you're suggesting is an approach that could leave the Militia unable to do anything for long periods of time.

I essentially agree with all these amendments. I would like to see official separation of powers, and am excited about Khem's future legislation.

[Delfos]

We really do, actually, considering that Bustos previously made the argument that only the Citizen-Sergeant could order operations, which means anytime the Citizen-Sergeant isn't here the Militia couldn't legally do anything.

The Cabal crushed his argument and his soul, he is now an empty chunk of meat.

[Gulliver]

One stickler correction, "Rejections can be appealed to the Ecclesia." should probably be "Rejections may be appealed to the Ecclesia." instead for consistency of language. Otherwise, I support the changes to address the issues listed.

[Eluvatar]

The discussion makes sense to me. I'll want to take a closer look at the text of the proposal to establish an opinion on it.

[Cormac]

One stickler correction, "Rejections can be appealed to the Ecclesia." should probably be "Rejections may be appealed to the Ecclesia." instead for consistency of language. Otherwise, I support the changes to address the issues listed.

Good catch, thanks. Since this was a minor edit, I just made it to the OP.

[Cormac]

Since there hasn't been any discussion in a couple of days, I move for a vote.

[Khem]

Again seconding.

[Cormac]

This will go to vote in two days, so if anyone has any concerns with the draft now's the time.