all in all it looks decent.

some concerns i have are "Monarchy", a bit outdated and tending towards "blood lines", which will tend towards titles of nobility, etc..

GIVING the power of the head of state (king) to: 

Article 34,11. The  Head  of  State  may  dissolve  Parliament.  The  Prosecutor  General  may  propose the dissolution of Parliament to the Royal Court. If the Royal Court agrees  with  the  arguments  made,  it  may  dissolve  Parliament  in  accordance  with the law.

when Article 32.10. The  Head  of  State  may  be  removed  from  his/her  position  by  Parliament  in  accordance with the procedure set by the law in the event of: 

a. ongoing inability to perform his/her duties on health grounds;

b. the  Prosecutor  General  accusing  the  Head  of  State  of  treason  or  other  major crime, with such accusation confirmed by a conclusion of the Royal Court;

c. the Prosecutor General or the Chamber of Supreme Values accusing the Head  of  State  of  a  gross  violation  of  Asgardia’s  Constitution,  with  such accusation confirmed by a conclusion of the Royal Court.

not a very stable system of checks and balances with no input from the PEOPLE and no limit of said dissolution... since the Head of State is solely responsible for appointing the Royal Court... He or She can now wield ultimate control with no legal recourse from the Citizens of Asgardia other than individual rights of the Citizens to remove themselves as Citizens of Asgardia

and... Taxation: as a citizen of the USA (like the significantly large number of Asgardians at this time), i am subject to the tyrany of over taxation with no reasonable representation by the IRS (unconstitutional) and forced to pay said taxes that are "by law" said to be voluntary... unless there will be some provision in Asgardian Law to allow Asgardian Citizens the capacity to declare their income and properties owned as paid in full... as an Asgardian Citizen, as Sovereign Property under the protection of Asgardia and thereby EXEMPT from any USA taxation... i say this is another form of taxation without representation and therefore a violation of a persons fundamental human rights. let it be known that i have no problem supporting any government that reciprocates supporting me and my family, but i will not be taxed twice for anything... if Asgardia represents my interest then they will protect me from taxation from another governing body... and visa versa...

let us deal with these important issues, shall we?

Habermacher.

modification of the chapter 4

Asgadia currency its the asgard

Asgardian currency is freely exchangeable into all of the global currencies on the free market on Earth an the universe. This can be presented in two denominations in physical form (paper money) and in the form of digital currency, including any form of crytocurrency

Asgardia's National Bank is responsible for the exchange rate, issue and circulation of finance, stability of the sovereign currency and bank system liquidity of the different denominations of currency. Asgardia's National Bank is regulated by the law of Asgardia. Decisions about the form and characteristics of paper money is at the discretion of the head of state ( igor may decide which form will have our paper currency included in which symbols and faces to place in it)

The integrity, stability and value of the denominations of the currency will be in the hands of Asgardia's National Bank and the government will be responsible for the maintenance, costs and infrastructure of the currency both on planet earth and in any territory of the space under the juridisccion of asgardia And try to maintain a unified currency with all present and future territories that are under the jurisdiction of asgardia any violation of any denomination of the currency should be declared as a matter of national security

(This is catalytic, if lena creates a crytocurency, the maintenance and infrastructure will be in the hands of Asgardia's National Bank is to say all those who create this will have a site like Asgardians and give  us the source code, in case of one of the creators of the cureency introduces vulnerabilities the Asgardia's National Bank must have the necessary tools to avoid a financial collapse to all the asgardia in the whole earth and the galaxies that are under the jurisdiction of asgardia 

after reading the entire constitutional draft and a majority of the responses... i would be forced to vote "NO" to the constitution in its entirety due to the short time frame provided for its revisions. there are too many concearns of the present Asgardian Citizens such as : age limits, term limits, currency, taxation, checks and balances, immunity for HoS, Constitutional Monarchy (Monarchy in general), currency based on the moon?.

too many items that are not clearly defined, etc...

I propose the entire Draft be held over for dicussion for a minimum of several months to work out these serious concearns by the People who are, and will be that which IS Asgardia

Our own currency seems fine but I'd like for the name to change. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks

I find the constitution not satisfactory

The age limits are way to high considering 75% of the population is under 35 years old 

Old enough to vote but not old enough to join the governing bodies?

The tax thing is OK.

Monarchy? Not ok --> this is more like a dictatorship

In theory the head of state could be in power for over 35 years sounds like a dictator

I Quote:

The Head of State enjoys immunity and is granted a lifetime guarantee of personal safety and the safety of his/her property after leaving the role.

This is a big no no --> Did I say dictator?

and these are just a few things I'm having trouble with.

Why?

Asgardia’s national motto is “One Humanity, One Community”

Why do we even have the Motto contest? 

The biggest thing is the age restrictions this should just be the legal age or 21

@trackman1997 - a few pages back now but i just want to clarify my point.

I don't agree with you completely that statements of morals etc shouldn't be in a constitution because usually people put together constitutions with some over ruling principle which is almost always based on their own moral direction and ideals.  So there is usually some mention of the ideals and principles and what might be considered acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.  However my point is that any mention of such things should be clearly defined as to what they are and not left up to subjective interpretation.  

Having said the above, in essence you are correct that a constitution is supposed to be a description of the ideals and goals of an organisation, the structure of the organisation, the governing of the organisation, the members' obligations to the organisation and a definition of the benefits to the members (eg. the rights of members).  Due to it being the root of everything in our society most constitutions also hold something about how the financial matters are to be carried out. 

One other thought which I only mention by way of clarification as people have voiced objection over the HoS being able to dissolve parliament.  In current constitutional monarchies the only way parliament can be dissolved is by the monarch or their direct spokesperson (in the case of my country the governor-general). So this is not such a problem. What needs to be defined properly are the conditions under which the HoS can do this. @scarbs would be aware of an instance in Australia where our parliament was dissolved in exactly that way.  It caused political turmoil but it didn't allow the monarch to wield any more power than before. In fact it actually caused us to change many of the laws and responsibilities of the monarch's spokesperson to reduce the monarch's far reaching powers.  This was possible because there were definitions of how and why the monarch could do this.  The definitions being the key as they allowed for laws to be changed.

In light of small examples like the above, I feel a little like it might be more beneficial for us to do a little research and propose definitions or options which help define what is needed instead of repeatedly stating what we find reprehensible.

I didn't finish the reading yet, but article 9 seems problematic.  I don't care paying a tax, but for what purpose ?  For now. it's a virtual nation...Taxes are supposed to benefits the community, not enrich individuals.  Also, I see a problem with the term National Bank as it is actually a valid bank name in Canada.  As for monarchy, what is the necessity ?  We can have a simple president or premier to lead the government...Too much power in one person can be catastrophic for the nation.

I simply would like to request that there be a central place where copies of the Constiution is in EVERY one of the 13 languages can be viewed before the community votes. Perhaps here on he main website...

      About  voting numbers                                                                                   

 There is currently just  under 180.000 people registered as citizens, Last I read or saw is that  we need 100.000 votes to pass DoU and Constitution . Know I read that  only half need to vote .So if we need 100,000 to pass that means around  79000 or so don't need to vote.If  its the other way just over 85000 don;t need to vote .So which is it 

This also needs to be explained on all the FB pages not just Asgardia General

@Protean

Why is it assumed by several people taxation will happen right away? Why are prople uneasy about this? Let me explain.

In the draft constitution, the requirement of citizens to pay tax a constitutional obligation on citizens (ie. directly stated in the draft constitution Art 9-5. From what I have seen, most countries that mention taxation in their constitution are satisfied to just state that the taxation system and terms will be set by the laws of the state (similar to Art. 13-13). Once these laws are duly enacted under a constitution, they becomes a legal obligation on citizens.

Again, according to the draft constitution, a breach of constitutional obligations can lead to, among other things, suspension / revocation of citizenship (Art. 9-10). Further, Article 46 allows the Head of State, prior to the election of the parliament and formation of government,  to "... issue decrees which remain in force until appropriate laws are adopted."

What safeguard is there that stops the Head of State issuing a decree stating "All Asgardians must pay a tax of [X] by [date]" and then revoking the citizenship of all those that can't (or won't) pay?

nihylum ol' boy I see that your much into Blogging and a PHP  so who do you work for 

Hi Everyone,

I'm really glad to see everyone becoming more active and voicing their concerns on this constitution. I do hope to read further suggestions and alternatives to place in the Constitution compilation that @skieswanne, Myself, and other members are putting together before they get officially passed up to the LEGAL team.

One thing I want to point out. I don't know if our previous efforts (motto, contests, DoU, Constitution ToC, etc.) were passed up in time for this document to be released. I would like to believe that maybe the LEGAL team have not taken the time to fully process our feedback and update their documents. If this should be the case, I want to see more active updates to the draft. A single review/compilation/feedback period is absurdly ridiculous. The short time period (Dr. Ashurbeyli has) requested to get our feedback before May 28th, is not only short-sighted, but completely ignores the democratic process of feedback.

Even the Japanese under a monarchy parliamentary system have the concept of Kaizen Strategy. Fundamentally, you must take feedback and incorporate it into the new system. That feedback binds the CEO and executives of the company to follow through. I would like to see more of this here. 

If the case is that our community efforts have not yet been incorporated due to time, then it should be obvious that a 10 day period (where 1/3 of that period most don't know it exists) is way too short of a time period for a proper debate and construction of a new draft.

Furthermore, you cannot run a country like a business. In the business world, the CEO is effectively a Dictator. Everything is waterfall, top-down, decision making... In a nation/state, the leader (regardless of title and type) is ultimately beholden to the people. For dictators, they do eventually die or the people revolt and the Dictator loses power. That power is given by the people. The people in large enough numbers will determine the fate of the nation. One has only to look at the revolutions of the past to see this truth.

No Monarchy:

As already mentioned by many others, the declaration
     "Asgardia is a Constitutional Monarchy"
is problematic. Why a monarchy? A monarchy is a relic of medieval feudalism, when the value of a person depended on the rank and status of the parents. It would be more appropriate to replace Constitutional Monarchy by
     Constitutional Meritocracy
or by
     Democratic Meritocracy
or, more toward modernity, by
     Participationist Meritocracy.

Now, I think it would be fair that the founding leader of Asgardia has, at least for a limited time, some (non transferable) special powers. It is to be expected that someone who have put a considerable amount of efforts and time and financial resources on a project would fear completely loosing control on that project, and fear that the project would be hijacked and taken in a direction he does not agree with. This is understandable. So, based on the  previous accomplishments (and in the spirit of a Meritocracy), I would agree that the political influence (or powers) of the founding leader should be more extensive (in time or otherwise) than those of the Heads of State that will succeed him. The details of this would be explicitly enunciated in the Transitional Period Chapter of the Constitution.

An emerging nation will survive with difficulty if it is in political turmoil. Someone (or some group) might need, in the very first stages,extended powers to stabilize the project and send it in the best direction.

I think we should all agree that, that without the Asgardia founding team, we would not be here. Anyway, we are not confined to a territory.So, if in the future, we do not like the direction Asgardia is taking, we can always jump off the spaceship (so to speak :-).

About participationism:

Statements that I would like to see in the Constitution are:

1. The prime objective of the government is to improve the life, the education and the well-being of all citizens.
2. The economic role of the government is to provide an equitable distribution of the work that needs to be done and of the benefits resulting from this work. Exploitation and increasing economic inequality will be considered as government failure.
3. The economy of Asgardia is constitutionally defined as a participationist economy. This means that citizens are incited to develop an expertise and being helped with this through education. They can then fully participate in the economy and in the benefits of this economy.
4. The social system of Asgardia is constitutionally defined as a participationist system. Educated citizens having an strong interest in a project can freely participate in the elaboration and execution of that project, according to their expertise. Here, the role of government will be to coordinate the efforts so to avoid duplication and dispersion.
5. Because Argardia is a participationist society, the influence of each citizen will depend on her/his past accomplishments. This is why the nation is being defined as a Constitutional Meritocracy. 
6. The main activity in Asgardia must be centred on education and on science and technology. These are crucial to any fast evolving society bound to meet new and unforeseen challenges.

Hoping that all this makes sense. 

     Andre

@scarbs - I don't disagree with you that most states tend to stick to general principles and leave matters of law out of the constitutional documents, however it could be interesting reading to have a little perusal of our own country's documents, you may be surprised at what you find written there.  There are many constitutions that have quite definitive citizens obligations in them and they work ok without too much problem to the citizenry at large.

Although, as most would know from my previous posts in other forums, I have a rather cynical opinion of human nature I find it difficult to tar someone who has grand ideas such as the doctor has with the black brush just yet.  Not knowing or talking to him and seeing so many obvious translation problems in this document I would be willing to reserve judgement.

As I said previously, There are a things in that document which seem superfluous, contradictory and definitely not the way I would have done it.  However there is a fair amount of stuff that is general and ok.  Perhaps put forward more ideas defining how we think it should be worded to allow for more control by the people, proper separation of powers and checks on that power.

I find it helps with my understanding of why releases are being written in this manner if I remember:

a) any state with peoples living in an environment in space in the future will definitely not be "business as usual". It cannot possibly be because the environment is completely hostile. It must be a created environment which is built, owned, maintained and staffed by the state. So a certain amount of dictatorial control is inevitable in the thinking of anyone who happens to be the one who thought up, paid for and launched it.

b) these documents are being written in russian and translated by people with no english-as-first-language skills.  The documents contain big ideas and concepts which don't translate very easily. This means there is a certain amount of emotive junk introduced by superfluous and nonsensical statements at the beginning.  These usually seem to get us all in a state of panic so we miss the intent of the wording.

c) I personally cant see that I have the right to tell my dad how to run his family, regardless of how much better at it or how much more knowledge I think I have.  He bought me into the world and I just have to live with his rules.  If I don't like it I can make a respectful suggestion and if I don't like the answer then I am free to leave.  At this stage it's really the doctors baby and we've been asked to put forward suggestions.  I can't see any real point in getting upset because the guy who came up with the idea, put his reputation on the line and put his money where his mouth is didn't like my suggestions. 

I mean honestly @scarbs, you and @thor haven't even allowed a chance for your suggestions to be taken up before you started screaming blue murder.  Settle down a bit and put forward sensible well written arguments as to why something is not a good idea. Post well thought out, researched ideas that define how you see things can or should be improved.  You've done this impeccably in the past forums.

I'm not having a go at you mate or trying to be rude or sarcastic. And I am not saying the draft is what I prefer. I'm prepared to be proven completely wrong in all this, however I do think putting forward positive offerings of how to change it to be a better document is preferable to writing everything off before the cutoff date comes around.

Also, my fifth reading of the document coupled with some research shows that the structure is not as close to the hereditary despotic monarchical platform that we thought it was at first.  There are reasonable structures and checks on power in there they are just very poorly written and leave large areas open to subjectivity.  @nihylum has hilighted a number and cleaned some of them up for better definition.  Also on re-reading @trackman1997's original post it seems to contain the thought process that can be used to properly define those checks and balances without the originator/financier of the project losing control of his own idea.  If anyone is not sure of the areas of concern @LoreZyra has pointed out very clearly the areas which are allowing subjectivity in, or lack of the necessary checks on range of power by the various governmental positions and bodies.

Again I'm sorry if that offends anyone. That is not my intention.

@Andre - an excellent understanding of human nature and great suggestions towards allowing the originator to maintain control of his idea while allowing a more defined and citizen controlled line of succession.