Thanks Cosmin :) Also @bigred good points on the morality, though perhaps incorporating exact morals into a constitution is likely a bad idea entirely, unfortunately I can see this going badly anyway its put. Morals and all are good for documents and speeches with no legal impact that simply serve to try and unite a group of people like the Declaration of Independence does, but beyond that morals are only useful for governments in so far as that immoral people tend to violate the rights of others. But moral people can also do this, and if you go beyond outlawing behavior that doesn't infringe on the rights of others on the basis of it being immoral, you risk essentially infringing on freedom of belief. I'd rather have that line be set and controlled by the people, so through Parliament than through a Constitution which could very end up hard to amend, and should not be amended any time we decide that the values we set weren't the best ones, or that we've gone too far in trying to protect those values.

Also yea, the citizenship clause probably doesn't actually help much, but at the very least it can be a way to offset the problem a few more years, as it could be construed that as that clause was in there that US citizens weren't intending to become dual citizens. Also with the fact that citizenship is pretty easy to gain and lose and is really likely to be seen and act as membership of an organization since it places the jurisdiction of the countries where Asgardians inhabit above that of the jurisdiction that Asgardia itself has over its citizens. The first issues won't really pop up until there comes to be Asgardian citizens who have no other citizenship and as such can't just be forcibly expatriated which seems to be currently the highest punishment possible since imprisonment and death penalty are outlawed, or a non-Asgardian citizen in Asgardian territory (i.e. on a Spaceship) gets fined (or if imprisonment or something like it is allowed, imprisonment) and complains to their home government about being robbed of their freedom or property thus requiring countries to once and for all decide whether it is a country which is thus allowed to do things like that and thus the citizen would need to be deported on request from their home country and all Asgardian citizens in their territory are thus dual-citizens, or simply an organization pretending to be a country which would mean that Asgardian citizens can continue on just basically being members in an organization, but would also mean that the country determined to have jurisdiction over Asgardia would be pressured to deal with it, either way I imagine that will be a contentious time, but probably a few decades away.

Also perhaps the "ideal parameters of the Moon" is some sort of bizarre and horrible translation error? Maybe? It really is just such an odd clause.

On a last side note thanks for the information behind the Constitution, as well as bringing up those points.

@nihylum(Asgardian) on 20 May 2017, 7:31 a.m.

I have re-read the constitution two times and I want to contribute the following changes (what is explained in the PDF):
https://prime.singularity.name/laws/constitution-patch-2017-05-20.pdf
Comments are welcome.

Hi Nihylum, it's great that you have your own copy of your inputs (I do as well - my copy is on DropBox). However, for the convenience of reading it, I recommend that you paste it directly into the forum page. This way, people don't have to take an extra effort to read your great suggestions.

Some of those things are solved in the Patch in my previous reply.

To embed it here, the changes are:

Preamble

We, the free people of Asgardia, irrespective of our place of birth and current residence, language, gender, race, skin color, nationality, creed, sexual orientation or origin, proclaim with determination to unite us regardless of ethnic, national, and religious differences. Together we stand, to always act based on morality, fairness, and peace, and to uphold the dignity of every human being. Together we stand, to resolve conflicts, inequality, and imperfections in human history, to engage spiritual and scientific practices and to bring human creative achievements to a new level in all their civilizational and cultural multitude as a beginning of a new era in the history of humanity in space. We have, with the Declaration of Unity as an integral part of this Constitution, founded Asgardia, the first Space Nation in human history and hereby adopt this Constitution of Asgardia as our fundamental law and our status to the people of the planet Earth.

0. General Directives

Directive 1 - Common Rights

The dignity and health of human being is inviolable.

Directive 2 - Individual Restriction

No Asgardian shall be restricted in any way due to gender, creed, sexual orientation, financial status, race, skin color or origin. All Asgardians shall be rewarded and employed equally for the same service or work under the same conditions, no matter if adult or children.

Directive 3 - Freedom of Speech and Press

The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press is equally obligatory for the government of Asgardia and every citizen and shall only be restricted to protect national security. All cases serving a restriction of one of both fundamental rights must be accessible and impeachable to all Asgardians and shall not be classified in any way.

Directive 4 - Free Civil Education and Information

Civil Education is a fundamental right and shall be served without any cost or requirements to all Asgardians. All Asgardians have the right to access civil information regardless where they are under the condition to not utilize civil information to increase prosperity or wealth or to not utilize information to manipulate the political, economical or military balance of nation aliened third parties.

Directive 5 - Development of the Individual

All Asgardians have the right to free development of the individual as long as it does not violate the prime values of Asgardia. No law or decree shall restrict this right.

Directive 6 - Political Groups

No Asgardian shall create political parties and must contest election campaigns under a peaceful manner without harming opposite candidates or their political opinion in any way.

Directive 7 - Military Service

No Asgardian shall be forced to serve in military forces of Asgardia in times of peace.

Directive 8 - Prisons and Judgements

No Asgardian or the government of Asgardia shall create prisons for the purpose of isolation from the society nor kill a life form as a judgment for a criminal act of any kind. Jailing an Asgardian shall be the last resort for extremely dangerous cases.

Directive 9 - Social and Cultural Needs

All Asgardian shall be supported in their social and cultural needs. The social or cultural needs of the many do not outweigh the social or cultural needs of the few. All Asgardians have an equal right to celebrate their religious beliefs in a manner that does not restrict the celebration due to gender, sexual orientation, race, skin color or origin.

Directive 10 - Intellectual Properties

The intellectual property of civil and military technologies, theories, explicitly artistic work and the product of artistic works remains under the authority of the government of Asgardia as long as released for the citizens of Asgardia. Civil technologies, theories, artistic work and the product of artistic work must be freely accessible by all Asgardians without costs for non-commercial and personal use. The manufacturing of technology and products in general, including manufacturing for export purposes, based on that intellectual property is overseen and regulated by the government of Asgardia and attached laws.

I just finished reading the constitution and it has problems.  

Article 7 will cause international problems. We are declaring that we can move people anywhere we want without the country's approval. 

Article 8 round about declares the legal age is 16. It either needs to be clearly defined or any age relating term removed.

Article 9 talks about citizens required obligation which needs to be clearly defined. If you can loose your citizenship over this it needs to be extremely clear on what it is. Also in article 9 section 5, paying taxes is fine but why levies? Section 10 is pretty harsh and makes this a criminal paradise.  What do we do with our criminals? 

Article 11 section 5, define a healthy lifestyle or remove completely. I personally don't think it is needed in the constitution. 

Article 13 section 2, why gor? Why does this need to be defined in constitution and I feel like we should vote on a name for the currency. Also if it is left in, are there sub parts to the gor, like dollars to pennys? Section 4, we will have a national central bank? 

Article 16, section 6, part g, the name royal council of supreme values is first noted to me and sounds like something out of 1984. It should be cut down to royal council. 

Article 17, section 4, part a, define moral ideals.

Article 18, section 3, why use propaganda? Section 4, it counterproductive because it is protected under free speech.  I approve of it but it needs to be moved under article 8, section 4, part a, as a restriction.  

Article 22-23, how are we protected? Is there a national police? Article 22, section 5, define immoral and antisocial behavior. Section 6, define immoral 

Article 23, how are we forecasting threats? This can be used to remove people unjustly. 

Article 25,section 2, what about hacking or the hos assuming control over them for personal gain? Section 4. The term commander in chief implies military. Will we have one? Section 5 implies we will have an airforce ofsome kind. Again are we going to have a military?

Article 27, section 1-6, having 13 official language's that change is crazy.  This leaves too many problems for educational, government. Government officials will be required to know all 13 current official languages. We need 1 primary language to be taught in school's and for official use and have all other languages official recognized. 

Article 30,section 2, "the head of state is the head ofof the government and is not part of any of the branches of government", needs to ne removed.  The hos is a governmental position and should be concider part of it.

Article 31, section 5. The part about treaties should be its on section. 

Article 32, section 4, the max age should be removed due to advancements in medical science will increase the average human life span and 75 can be the new 20 in the future. Section 11, immunity from what? Personal safety meaning physical protection? Section 12, makes hos all powerful lord. Too much power here. Part a, appoints and removes head of the royal court. What if they disagree with them? The removal should be under parliament powers. Part b, should be removed. The prosecutor general is a check and balance role for the hos. They should have little to no control over who has this role. Many of these roles should be voted into office. Part c, needs to be removed. Hos should have no power over parliament. Part e, should also be removed at minimal reworded. Part f, states we will have a military and honorary titles. Define honorary titles. We shouldn't be giving out military rank to anyone.  It should be earned. 

Article 33, the rcosv, should again be renamed to royal council and have a set number of members.  section 2, age limits should be dropped and it pretty much states anyone can be a member as long as they're over 60. 

Article 34, section 2, why 150 members? Section 3, age limit should be reduced. Section 5, age limit should be removed and they shouldn't remain in office for an unlimited terms. Section 11, hos dissolve parliament should be removed. Prosecutor general should be an elected position. Section 12, part e, should be removed.  Section 12, part f, should be a joint power not the sole power of parliament. 

Article 35, section 4, age limit should be removed.  Section 9, there should be a fine and or some form of punishment for no budget.  Let's not let this be a political tool.

Article 37, section 5, age limit should be removed.  Section 7, there shouldn't be a changing internal code of conduct. It should be set and confirmed by hos and parliament. Section 10, immunity from what? Why for life? How to remove a corrupt justice?

Article 39, nao should not be influenced  be hos or parliament.  The chairman shouldn't be appointed by hos but recommend is fine. Approved by parliament and removed by royal court. 

Article 40, security service? National police? Military? What is it?

Article 43, 2/3 of citizens and reference giving doesn't make sense.

Article 46, hos decrees should be required to follow the constitution and and decrees that don't should no longer be in effect. 

That's the main issues and thoughts I had on the draft.

@nihylum Seems pretty good, I'll be honest, I generally focus a lot more on the structures and powers of any given government rather than the rights given to its people as I figure without the first, the second are simply flowery empty promises. I think it would be nice to have a preamble, though perhaps make it a little less US-esque, especially since there are whole debates as to whether it was appropriate for the Founding Fathers of the US to use the words "We the People" when the people were very much not involved in writing it and even right now there really is debate as to whether this could be considered to actually be a government of the people. I mean if Igor wants to be King that much it would make more sense for him to write a preamble describing what the ideals and goals he had in mind in creating this country.

I think the term Laws is probably an okay one, if it were rules it would make us seem more like a normal organization, not a fledgling country (countries have laws, organizations have rules), and guidelines would imply that we're only suggesting that people follow them. Now at the moment as at the moment it really is only an organization with no power to actually do anything to its members other than expel them (and even having the power if it were used it would create an international incident) guidelines might be a better indication of what the Laws of Asgardia will be for the majority of people (for instance, just because there has been a new calendar that has been adopted via official decree and thus might be considered part of the Law of Asgardia, I suspect that relatively few Asgardians use it or have taken more than cursory glances at it), once there are people in space whose only legal protection is that which the Asgardian government provides, we will need to have those people follow Laws, not rules or guidelines. The biggest issue I have however with the terminology is (like a lot of terminology in the Constitution) it's not really consistent. There are plenty of places where it's mentioned (apparently 60+ you say) but it's actually defined. It at first appears to be referring to everything legally binding originating from the State that isn't the Constitution, but then they describe what Legal Acts are (which is the only place I caught that mentioned that term) and enumerated what constitutes as a Legal Act but described "laws" as being part of the Legal Acts. However, while all the other Legal Acts not only indicate what they are to be referred to, they also indicate which branch of government would be creating them, "laws" is 1. not in uppercase unlike all the other mention of "Laws of Asgardia" 2. does not specify which branch of government creates the "laws." This is probably due to translation issues, but could also be due to the fact that the people working on it seem to be merely Lawyers, Judges, and Consultants, and not Constitutional Scholars (which is ironically a fairly new branch of Political Science), at least from what I've been able to glean from the way this document is put together. The reason why it seems that way is a Lawyer, Judge, or a Consultant can be very good at interpreting the Constitution and trying to figure out how it's supposed to be read, they generally only focus on how this affects the average person, which means that the rights of the average person and how they interact with government is far more important to them than how the government itself should be structured. While rights are important to put into a Constitution, it is far more important to determine not only the basic structure of that government, but listing the powers and limitation of each branch, as well as the checks and balances that each will be able to have on each other. Sorry for the devolution in topic, I tend to be a bit rambly at times. 

deleted...

Tôi đọc qua nó, và tôi cảm thấy khá đầy đủ và không có ý tưởng nào khác. (Tôi rất vui mừng chào đón sự ra đời của nhà nước vũ trụ Asgardian đầu tiên)

Tôi tự hào là một công dân của Asgardia

Nhưng tôi cần một chính phủ quốc gia để mở rộng phạm vi áp dụng, cung cấp công khai hơn, các công trình khoa học để bảo vệ trái đất, giúp đỡ và hỗ trợ người dân liên lạc với nghiên cứu (hỗ trợ nghiên cứu nghiên cứu). Asgardia là một không gian văn minh, nhưng mọi người không, hoặc rất khó có thể tiếp xúc, nghiên cứu bởi vì không phải mọi công dân là một nhà nghiên cứu hay một nhà khoa học. Có một quốc gia phát triển theo đúng nghĩa của nó, 

cảm ơn bạn !

Mod Edit English translation -I read through it, and I feel quite full and have no other ideas. (I am very happy to welcome the birth of the first Asgardian cosmic state)

I am proud to be a citizen of Asgardia

But I need a national government to expand the scope of application, provide more open, scientific works to protect the earth, help and support people in contact with research (research support research). Asgardia is a space of civilization, but people do not, or very difficult to contact, research because not every citizen is a researcher or a scientist. There is a developed country in its own right,

thank you !

Zahira, 20/05/2017, 12:15 UTC

I read through it, and I feel quite full and have no other ideas. (I am very happy to welcome the birth of the first Asgardian cosmic state)

I am proud to be a citizen of Asgardia

But I need a national government to expand the scope of application, provide more open, scientific works to protect the earth, help and support people in contact with research (research support research). Asgardia is a space of civilization, but people do not, or very difficult to contact, research because not every citizen is a researcher or a scientist. There is a developed country in its own right,

thank you !

I just want to post a (reasonably) quick analysis of the size of the structure of the government proposed by this draft constitution compared to the current population of Asgardia.

I have excluded the judicial / law enforcement arm as the size of this branch is dictated by not only the population, but the laws (and how they are enforced). You would reasonably expect that law and order would not be a huge issue in a nation of educated, enlightened citizens with a functional and fair government. However, there will still be a need for it, but I'm pretty sure that 13 Justices is overkill. I mean, the 320 million people in the USA are served by nine Justices.

That aside, let's look at the proposed structure:

• Head of State - 1
• Royal Council of Supreme Values - not stated in the draft constitution, but for the sake of this exercise let's assume (conservatively) that the RCSV consists of 5 members.
• Parliament - 150
• National Audit Office Chairman (ugh! not gender neutral) - 1
• I have also conservatively assumed that the Chairman (ugh! again with the gender non-neutral) of Government and the the 13 Ministers are drawn from the 150 member Parliament (this is unclear with the way the constitution is currently drafted).

As of today, there are 179,435 registered Asgardians. Under the above structure, there would be about 157 members of the executive and legislative branches of government. That's one representative per approx 1,150 citizens.

• To put that in perspective:
• The federal electorate I am part of in Australia consists of approximately 150,000 people - one elected member represents my federal electorate to the Australian Parliament.
• The state electorate I am part of in New South Wales consists of approximately 47,000 people - one elected member represents my state electorate to the NSW Parliament.
• My city has a population of around 42,000 - we elect 9 people to the City Council.
• 
  
• This means, at worst, the people in my city are represented by no less than 11 elected representatives - 1 representative per approx 3,800 citizens. And here's the kicker - Australia is considered my many to be over-governed!
• 
  
• I have previously suggested the idea of a directly elected technocracy and an independently elected Head Of State. I've thought about and developed this idea further and I think I may have a workable model:
• An independently elected Head of State
• A 13 members directly elected technocratic Council (each representing a ministry)
• A "citizen legislature" where proposals are developed collaboratively by and between interested citizens

This equates to 1 executive / legislative representative per approx 12,800 Asgardians.

Thoughts?

Again this constitutional monarchy is a total surprise. During all the discussions on what type of goverment and constitution I don't recall anyone mentioning or advocating for this route. This seems like it was added by official and I belive we have a right to know why as soon as possible as this seems to go against what most of Asgardians were imagining the goverment to be like.

Second why pick a 50/50 yes/no to implement the constitution?  For anything you should have at least a 60/40 , but for this I'd go for a 70/30 yes to implement what is essentially the basis of the entire nation and the most important document,  why pick something that at bare minimum may just barely pass and is only like by half of the nation

Also I'd ask that besides giving all these institutions a way to check eachother you give civilians a way to remove/block people/positons/laws they do not like instead of having to rely on another branch of goverment to do so. If we're truly the power of the nation then give us the power to do so not just a failsafe that all it needs is two or three corrupted indivudals in league to shut down

I am truly disturbed by the breath of wide powers bestowed on the HoS. I wish to create a visual to illustrate how the entities described in this draft currently are setup. Any one that can help with that will be greatly appreciated. Basically, I see the HoS in a big box with lines down to the four branch boxes below. This illustration should show how the checks/balances are designed so the average person (with little time to read in depth as some of us have...) can understand the implications of the power structures.

In reply to the last post from @Scarbs, one thing I don`t understand is the need for a Parliament. Why do we need another body of "representatives" when all the political work is done online, all the voting is online ... why is it so difficult to get rid of the past constructions and go for a modern approach of the people being their own Parliament?

 What I am proposing is not to have Parliament at all, but instead to conduct online voting processes and Asgardians to act as their own Parliament. With this, the article where the HoS dissolves the Parliament doesn`t make sense anymore, since he/she can`t dissolve the entire nation.

@Cosmin Hodrea

This was my exactly my thinking with the citizen legislature. It would be an "online parliament" if you will. The role of the Council of 13 (who are technocratic experts in their respective area) is oversight and to ensure any citizen legislation does not significantly adversely affect the responibilities of their specific Ministries.

The Head of State would be the final check and balance, but I'd envision the need to use a veto would be extremely rare as any legislation that reaches their desk has been developed by consensus and signed off on by 13 elected experts.

Small, efficient, effective - the way government should be.

Interestingly, the captcha for this post was VOA - Voices of Asgardia.

Firstly, I am opposed to the idea of monarchy and aristocracy, as I believe it's an outdated, undemocratic form of government. I'd honestly prefer a president or prime minister elected once every five years.

Secondly, why the hell does the head of state have so much power? To my mind, the head of state is only there to sign bills into law; they should not have any political power whatsoever. The real power should reside within the legislature.

Thirdly, the minimum age for running for government should be lowered to 21. Hell, I'm not even 19 yet, and I still have more political know-how than a lot of 40-year-olds.

Fourthly, why 150 representatives? Why not just have one or two representatives from each station?.