If there is room to change it, I would still like Resident over Member, but it’s no biggie from me.
Alright, so let’s separate the discussion about Citizen/Legislator merger from breaking down and simplifying Citizen apps. I’ll make a new thread on that in due time (or somebody else can).
So, here are the questions that, in my mind, are open before we go to drafting:
- The new CRS power to revoke citizenship afterwards - should this be only in conjunction with the Court, or autonomously with a time limit, revocable by the Court?
- Who handles the super trivial Citizen applications going forward? CoA, as it used to be?
- How can we make sure that IP duplications, weird emails, etc. are reviewed once a month or such? Technically, that’s an admin job (and partially automatable).
My opinions, in order:
- As I stated in OP, I think it’s fine to have the CRS get injunction power, which (if used) immediately spawns a court case. (This would only apply to bans on a NationStates persona, not an administrative ban of a player, of course). This allows the CRS to react quick while still being checked, and ultimately we all appointed the CRS to be trusted people.
- My suggestion was CoA but I don’t really care if it’s something else so long as it’s an office that is (1) non-political (2) not inherently powerful in other ways - so that means, not the PM or Delegate, but the CoA would be fine. I suppose we could also go with a ridiculously stripped down CitComm to which people can be easily appointed, rather than getting rid of CitComm entirely - I’m very amenable to that suggestion.
- There are reminder plugins for Discourse, so even if this isn’t automated, we can still have something that annoys admins into doing checks once a month (which would be plenty enough, imho). If anything suspicious comes up (either during a routine check by admins, or because the CRS noticed suspicious behavior), CRS and Admins can coordinate easily in a shared space. I wouldn’t think this to be a problem as long as it’s occasionally done.
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If you feel proscriptions should be limited in their effect to citizenship, what is the difference from a citizenship suspension?
Eh, that’s kind of a separate point, probably, but sure. Proscription also bars having a nation in the region, and I wouldn’t change that. A proscription is an indefinite thing (until removed), while a suspension is inherently temporary in that it wouldn’t effectively remove citizenship, only temporarily remove the privileges associated with it, until either the suspension is rescinded or the citizenship is removed through another means (e.g. if the Court agrees with the CRS’ assessment of a security risk through citizenship through a fair judicial case).
You know, the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. Kinda ties into the “offices” thing from the other thread. It should definitely have a friendlier name, though.
We don’t appoint Justices for their security prowess. If the CRS determines someone to be a security risk, the Court’s role is to ensure the process used was fair, not that the evidence was insufficient to warrant citizenship removal.
Eh, I disagree. The Court by design is the one place that can review things, and I wouldn’t want to put the CRS above other institutions in this way (and there’s an argument to be made that Proscription Act 4.2 is unconstitutional for this reason, actually). Which doesn’t mean that the Court should be the ones saying “is being a member of BoM a risk or not”, but at least “are there sensible reasons this is so” and “did they check if they really are BoM or not” or whatever. The standard of “fair process” could just mean “did they talk about it”.
But maybe that’s what you meant. I hope that’s what you, as a CRS member, actually meant. 
Anyway, threw together a very very very rough and quick draft of a citizenship act rewrite with a stripped down CitComm.
Citizenship Act
An act to establish procedures for managing citizenship eligibility
1. Citizenship
(1) Any Member of the Coalition is eligible for citizenship via application, so long as:
- they are not conspicuously attempting to join multiple times under different aliases or identities;
- they have not been barred from citizenship via other lawful means.
(2) Any Citizen of the Coalition will retain their citizenship, so long as:
- they remain members of the Coalition;
- they cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote and are not on a leave of absence or a suspension, provided that such review must take place no later than seven days after the end of said election, and for that purpose, the Election Commissioner must provide a list of voters who cast votes;
- they remain truthful to the Council on Regional Security in matters relating to their security status;
- they are not removed from citizenship via other lawful means.
(2) Citizens may request a leave of absence for a non-indefinite period of time, specifying the end date of such leave, which will be subject to discretionary approval from the Citizenship Committee before the voting period for each election. Citizens shall not have their status removed if they fail to cast a ballot in an election for which the majority of the voting period is contained within their leave of absence. An otherwise active citizen can be granted leniency for failing to vote during an election at the discretion of the Citizenship Committee.
2. Citizenship Committee
(1) The Citizenship Committee is responsible for establishing an application process for citizenship, as well as granting and revoking the citizenship of members.
(2) The Citizenship Committee is comprised of at least three citizens, each appointed by the Prime Minister and approved by the Assembly via a simple majority vote.
(3) The Citizenship Committee will review applications for citizenship. If an applicant is conspicuously ineligible, the application will be denied, and otherwise the applicant will be accepted with all due speed. The result (including a sufficient reason in case of denial) shall be posted both in response to the application as well as per telegram to the applicant nation, if possible.
(4) The Citizenship Committee will remove citizenship if a member is no longer eligible, provided that no unlawful expulsion from the region may be used to support a conclusion of failure to meet the qualifications. The Citizenship Committee shall perform a routine check of extant citizens at least once a month.
3. Extraordinary Removal
(1) The Council on Regional Security may order a suspension of citizenship if they deem a citizen to be a significant risk to regional security. A suspension must be limited to a duration of no more than 7 days, which may only be extended by a court injunction.
(2) When a suspension is issued, a court case to review the suspension shall be started automatically, in which the Court may either reverse the suspension, or uphold the assessment of risk in which case the citizenship shall be removed.
4. Constitutional Law
(1) The Citizenship Act is a constitutional law, and further amendments to it must meet constitutional amendment requirements.
Let’s say a member gets their citizenship suspended around the time an election starts and the suspension lasts throughout all the election period. The court concludes that the suspension wasn’t “legitimate” and gives back the citizenship. Meanwhile, the citizen has been factually deprived of their voting rights, no? Maybe It could be made that the suspension isn’t full, It allows to cast a vote but that vote would count only after and if the court concludes that the suspension gets reversed, otherwise it would be void.
I have no strong opinion, given how rare I’d expect this to occur.
I thought that was what I had said. Court’s role is checking the fair process used, not evaluating whether the evidence the CRS has is enough to determine a security risk.
Thinking about this more - I certainly understand the reasoning and concern, but I find it hard to address it in a sensible manner. Suppose we have two PM candidates, Meaningful Cough and Notable Sneeze, as well as three citizens who all voted for Meaningful Cough in a private ballot but were suspended just before the election, so that the Election Commissioner has to hold their vote. Now suppose that in the results without those three votes, Notable Sneeze wins by one vote. Does the EC have to withhold the election results until the court case concludes (which may take a while)? And also, by the fact that the EC has to withhold the election results, we also know what those three voted despite them being suspended, which violates their right to a private ballot.
So, I’d say we simply leave it. It shouldn’t be a frequent occurrence anyway, and we should hopefully be able to trust the CRS to not use this in a way to sway an election (and even if so, they’re all on the line for corruption, particularly with the coming Sunshine changes).
Yes, that was the idea. If the problem Is that we might end up without a governament for a short period of time, then we could add to the election act that the almost former governament in case of witholding of the election results stays in charge up until the results are open (NOTE: I’m on phone rn with bad wifi, and i don’t have the time to check the EA, so maybe such circumstances are already treated with like if RON wins or smth else)
I don’t get this point: If the EC witholds the results up until the suspensions have been solved, how would the public know what they voted for?
If the EC has to withhold the result due to suspension, and then releases the results after the suspension has been lifted, it’s because the result without the suspension would have been different, so therefore it can be implied that the suspended citizens’ votes were whichever ones tipped the scale in one direction or the other.
Doesn’t have to be.
(Also checked the EA, and I’d suggest to do as with RON in case the suspension(s) last particularly long, even though I really don’t expect such circumstance to ever happen).