Citizens Act Drafting Discussion

[Deleted]

I have noticed there has been some discussion of security and carrying out security checks and therefore I wondered if there would be any interest in have a citizens act? I hope it is OK to post this here even though I haven’t posted a proposed act.

I have adapted this from one I wrote in 2010.

Citizens Act

Article I: Responsibilities

• A citizen is defined as a member of the Social Liberal Union who has publicly applied for and been granted citizenship and has a nation in the Social Liberal Union.
  
• It is the responsibility of the Minister of Immigration or Minister of Domestic Affairs or the WA Delegate to publicly grant or deny all requests for citizenship. This is to include checking that they do have a nation in the Kingdom of Ireland region
  
• It is the responsibility of the Minister of Immigration or Minister of Domestic Affairs or the WA Delegate to inform the Admin Team of any known security risk posed by the person applying for citizenship.
  
• It is the responsibility of the Admin Team to mask people as citizens once citizenship has been granted.
  

Article II: Responsibilities

• In order to be considered for citizenship in the Social Liberal Union, an applicant must:
  
  1. Have a nation in the Social Liberal Union region or region under the control of the Social Liberal Union
  2. Be a registered member of the forums
  a. New applicants must apply to the forums with the name of their Social Liberal Union nation
  3. Provide answers to these questions:
  a. Name of Nation in the Social Liberal Union region or region under the control of the Social Liberal Union
  b. Name of WA Nation, if not the same as the first
  c. In which other regions, if any, the applicant holds citizenship
  d. What positions, if any, the applicant holds in those regions
  e. Amount of previous NS experience, if any.
  4. Provide answers to any further questions deemed necessary by the Minister of Immigration or Minister of Domestic Affairs or the WA Delegate.
  

Article III: - Denial of Citizenship

• If citizenship is to be denied, a reason must be given upon denial.
  
• Acceptable reasons for denial include, but are not limited to:
  
  1. Applicant is a known, convicted spammer or criminal from another region
  2. Applicant is a known enemy of the Social Liberal Union or any ally of the Social Liberal Union
  3. Applicant is a suspected spy or suspected enemy of the Social Liberal Union or any ally of the Social Liberal Union
  4. Applicant is reapplying for citizenship before the end of their sentence or before being pardoned
  5. Other reasons of a similar weight
  

Article IV: - Revoking Citizenship

• Citizenship may be revoked for an extensive period of undeclared inactivity (a minimum of two months)
  
• Citizenship may be revoked as punishment for a crime, subject to appropriate and reasonable legislation
  
• Citizenship may be revoked if the citizen’s declared nation is no longer in the Social Liberal Union region or region under the control of the Social Liberal Union unless it is outside of the region on regional business.
  

Article V: – Political rights of citizens

• Every citizen of the Social Liberal Union has the right to vote in public elections or referendum.
  
• Every citizen of the Social Liberal Union has the right to stand for election in public elections
  
• Every citizen of the Social Liberal Union is a member of the (Open) Parliament
  
• Only citizens can be members of the Cabinet or Deputy Secretaries or Ministers.
  
• Only citizens can be Judges.
  
• Only citizens can be members of the Admin Team, Royalty or Monarch.
  

The Combined Union Security Act might need to be amended to include the publishing of reasons for ejections and bans.

The constitution might have to be amended to give membership of Parliament to citizens only.

Maybe a clause needs to be added about the political balance of their nation.

What do people think?

[Deleted]

Hi, first of all I'd like to apologize for my inactivity.

I'd also like to say that I think this is unnecessary, and as a former Minister of Immigration, I do not think an application process or the rest of this bill is needed.

Sincerely, Peace Strivers

[Kingdom of Grolsch]

Agreed, I think most of the clauses in the Act are currently codified in the Constitution, Acts or ministerial policies or are not necessary. I don't want to come across as hostile, but we don't have an Admin Team/Royalty/Monarch or Judges in the traditional sense.

[North American Republics]

I am rather concerned by the fact that we must apply to become citizens. We want to be an open and free region, but denying nations citizenship because of answering the questions that are established in the act (which in itself is not a smart idea because questions might need to changed in the future) incorrectly or not fully, is not a very open policy. The large expanse of NationStates and nations that have CTE'd and numerous other issues also pose problems to the act as it is.

What is this new term you bring up too, "Royalty" or "Monarch"? I suppose that it could just be leftover from your adaptation of the previous bill/act/piece of legislation. I am strongly against this bill, at least as it is right now.

[Avaerilon]

I don't think this bill is suited to our region. While it raises some issues that would be appropriate in other regions, our structure and system wouldn't work effectively with what is proposed. Added to that the huge volume of work that would be added (particularly for the Department of Immigration), as well as the real danger that the applications system could easily put-off around half the nations we invite to our region. On that point, most of the people who arrive here appear to have been TG'd beforehand, having met the requirements we already have in-place. This would be an unnecessary extension of complex bureaucracy that, although increase some security benefits, do more harm than good, I feel. For these reasons, I must make clear my disagreement with the proposal.

[Kingdom of Grolsch]

A clarification about our recruitment policy: we only recruit nations with Average or higher freedoms. Freedoms are checked each and every week by Immigration and actioned by the appropriate Ministry (Defense in case of members; Immigration in case of non-members).

[Millyland]

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that has been expressed in this discussion thread. The bill is not needed, and would have an adverse effect on our region and Immigration process. The application form for citizenship should also not be implemented.

[Deleted]

Firstly I would like to thank you all for your comments.

I do recognise that some clauses would not apply here as you don’t have judges, royalty or a monarch. I am surprised that anyone can think there is no admin team even if you do not use that term, someone has to administer the forum and it appears to me that the Kingdom of Grolsch has some admin rights.

I had gotten the idea that you have a recruitment policy based on the political make-up of the nation; however this act would allow people to be denied participation on the forum based on other criteria than how Social Liberal their nation is.

Having a requirement to answer some basic questions can help existing forum members get to know new members. Providing answers to these questions would be a very basic security check which might alert people to an issue with a new person.

I am not sure new people expect to have full membership of a board as soon as they register and this simple question and answer session does not have to delay things very long. There is already a delay between registering and becoming a member state and this process would not need to add much time to that especially if the new person requested citizenship as soon as they arrived.

However it is clear that everyone who has posted so far does not think this is needed and of course now I have suggested it others may wish to come back to it and take the good bits and draft their own version when they see a need for it. Therefore I will not be drafting a new version to address some of the issues raised and to comply with the drafting policy of the region. I will just have to look for something else to propose. :)

[Millyland]

Shall this be archived, then?

[Administrator]

Works for me. I'll move it now