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- # The Constitution of Mars
- We the people of Mars have gathered here on Pavonis Mons in the year
- 2128 to write a constitution which will serve as a legal framework for
- an independent planetary government. We intend this constitution to be
- a flexible document subject to change over time in the light of
- experience and changing historical conditions, but assert here that we
- hope to establish a government that will forever uphold the following
- principles: the rule of law; the equality of all before the law;
- individual freedom of movement, association, and expression; freedom
- from political or economic tyranny; control of one's work life and the
- value thereof; communal stewardship of the planet's natural resources;
- and respect for the planet's primal heritage.
- # Article 1. Legislative Department
- ## Section 1. The Legislative Bodies
- The legislative body for Martian global issues will be a two-housed
- congress, consisting of a duma and a senate.
- The duma will be composed of five hundred members, selected every
- m-year by a lottery drawn from a list of all Martian residents over
- ten m-years old. It will meet on Ls=0 and and Ls=180, every m-year,
- and stay in session for as long as necessary to complete its business.
- The senate will be composed of one senator from each town or
- settlement on Mars with a population larger than five hundred people
- (changed by Amendment 22 to three thousand people), elected every two
- m-years, using an Australian ballot system. The senate will remain
- permanently in session, aside from breaks of no more than a month out
- of every twelve.
- ## Section 2. Powers Granted to the Congress
- The duma will elect the executive council's seven members, using an
- Australian ballot system.
- The senate will elect one third of the members of the global
- environmental court, and one half of the members of the constitutional
- court, using an Australian ballot system.
- The congress will pass laws enabling it to: lay and collect taxes
- equitably from the towns and settlements represented in the senate; to
- provide for the common defense of Mars; to regulate commerce on Mars,
- and with other worlds; to regulate immigration to Mars; to print money
- and regulate its value; to form a criminal court system; and to form a
- standing police and security group to enforce the laws and defend the
- commonwealth.
- All laws passed by the congress shall be subject to review by the
- executive council; if the executive council vetoes a proposed law, the
- congress can override the veto with a two-thirds vote.
- All laws passed by the congress shall also be subject to review by the
- constitutional and environmental courts, and a veto by these courts
- cannot be overridden, but shall be grounds for rewriting the law if
- the congress sees fit, after which the process of passing the law
- shall begin again.
- # Article 2. Executive Department
- ## Section 1. The Executive Council
- The executive council shall be formed of seven members, elected by the
- duma every two m-years. Executive council members must be Martian
- residents at the time of their election, and at least ten m-years old.
- The executive council shall elect one of its members as council
- president, using an Australian ballot system. It shall also elect or
- appoint a reasonable number of officers needed to help perform its
- various functions.
- ## Section 2. Powers of the Executive Council
- The executive council shall command the global police and security
- force, in the defense of Mars, and in the upholding and enforcement of
- the constitution on Mars.
- The executive council shall have the power, subject to the review and
- approval of the congress, to make treaties with Terran political and
- economic bodies (and the other political entities in the solar system,
- as stated in Amendment 15).
- The executive council will elect or appoint one-third of the members
- of the environmental court, and one half of the members of the
- constitutional court.
- # Article Three. Judicial Department
- ## Section 1. The global courts
- There shall be two global courts, the environmental court and the
- constitutional court.
- The environmental court shall consist of sixty-six members, one third
- elected by the senate, one third elected or appointed by the executive
- council, and one third elected by the vote of all Martian residents
- over ten m-years old. Individuals elected or appointed to the court
- shall hold their office for ten m-years.
- The constitutional court shall consist of twelve members, half elected
- by the senate, half elected or appointed by the executive
- council. Court members shall hold their office for ten m-years.
- ## Section 2. Powers Granted the Environmental Court
- The environmental court shall have the power to review all laws passed
- by the congress for their impact on the Martian environment, and have
- the right to veto such laws without appeal if their environmental
- impact is judged unconstitutional; to appoint regional land
- commissions to monitor the activities of all Martian towns and
- settlements for their environmental impact; to make judgements in
- disputes between towns or settlements concerning environmental
- matters; and to regulate all land and water stewardship and tenure
- rights, which are to be written in conjunction with the congress, to
- replace or adapt Terran concepts of property for the Martian
- commonality.
- The environmental court shall rule on all cases brought before it in
- accordance with concepts insuring a slow, stable, gradualist
- terraforming process, which terraforming will have among its goals a
- maximum air pressure of 350 millibars at six kilometers above the
- datum in the equatorial latitudes, this figure to be reviewed for
- revision every five m-years.
- ## Section 3. Powers Granted the Constitutional Court
- The constitutional court shall review all laws passed by the congress
- for their adherence to this constitution, and judge all local and
- regional cases submitted to it that it determines to concern
- significant global constitutional issues, or to impinge on the
- individual rights established in this constitution. Congressional and
- local laws it judges unconstitutional can be revised, and resubmitted
- to the court by the relevant legislative bodies.
- The constitutional court shall oversee an economic commission of fifty
- members. The court shall appoint twenty members, all Martian residents
- of at least ten m-years of age, to terms of five m-years. The other
- thirty members shall be appointed or elected by guild cooperatives
- representing the various professions and trades practiced on Mars
- (provisional list appended). The economic commission shall submit for
- legislative approval a body of economic law and practices which will
- combine publicly owned not-for-profit basic services, and privately
- owned taxed for-profit enterprises; specify what the public services
- shall be and how they will be regulated; set legal size limits on all
- private enterprises; establish legal guidelines for private
- enterprises which insure that employees own their enterprises and the
- capital and profits associated with them; and oversee the welfare of a
- participatory, democratic economy.
- ## Section 4. Reconciliation of the Two Courts
- The executive council shall elect a reconciliation board, composed of
- five members of the environmental court and five members of the
- constitutional court, which shall mediate, arbitrate and reconcile any
- disputes, discrepancies or other conflicts between the judgments of
- the two global courts.
- ##Article 4. The Global Government and the Towns and Settlements
- The towns, tented canyons, tented craters, and smaller settlements on
- Mars shall be semi-autonomous in relation to the global state and to
- each other. Towns and settlements are free to establish their own
- local laws, political systems, and cultural practices, except where
- these laws, systems or practices would abrogate the individual rights
- guaranteed by this global constitution.
- Citizens of each town and settlement shall be entitled to all the
- rights guaranteed in this constitution, and to all the rights of all
- the other towns and settlements.
- Towns and settlements shall not form regional political alliances that
- would function as the equivalent of nation-states. Regional interests
- must be pursued and defended by occasional and temporary coordinated
- activities between towns and settlements.
- No town or settlement shall practice physical or economic aggression
- on any other town and settlement. Disagreements between any two or
- several towns or settlements are to be resolved by arbitration or
- judicial ruling by the appropriate court.
- The physical extent of local law established by any town or settlement
- shall be set by the land commission, in consultation with the towns
- and settlements affected by the judgment. Tented craters and canyons,
- and freestanding tent towns, have obvious physical boundaries that can
- function as the equivalent of "city limits," but these towns, as well
- as diffuse open-air settlements, have legitimate "spheres of
- influence" that will often overlap the spheres of influence of
- neighboring towns and settlements. The land inside these spheres of
- influence is not to be construed as "territory" owned by the towns and
- settlements, in keeping with the general withdrawal from Terran
- notions of sovereignty and property as such. Nevertheless all towns
- and settlements will have the legal right to consideration concerning
- all land use issues, including water rights, within their sphere of
- influence as established by the land commission.
- # Article 5. Individual Rights and Obligations
- ## Section 1. Individual Rights:
- * Freedom of movement and assembly.
- * Religious freedom.
- * Freedom of speech.
- * Right to vote in global elections not to be abridged.
- * Right to legal counsel, timely trial, and habeus corpus.
- * Freedom from unreasonable search or seizure, double jeopardy, or
- involuntary self-incrimination.
- * Freedom from cruel or unusual punishments.
- * Right to choice of employment.
- * Right to the majority of the economic benefits of one's own labor,
- as calculated by formulas to be approved by the economic commission,
- but never less than 50 percent in any case.
- * Right to a meaningful part in the management of one's work.
- * Right to a minimum living wage for life.
- * Right to proper health care, including the body of practices known
- collectively as the "longevity treatment."
- ## Section 2. Individual Obligations
- The citizens of Mars shall, over the course of their lives, give one
- m-year of work to global service and the public good, such work to be
- defined by the economic commission, but never to be military or police
- work.
- The right to own or bear lethal weapons is expressly denied to
- everyone on Mars, including police or riot control officers.
- # Article 6. The Land
- ## Section 1. Terraforming Goals and Limits
- The primal state of Mars shall have legal consideration, and shall not
- be altered except as part of a terraforming program dedicated to
- making the surface of the planet survivable by humans up to the six
- kilometer altitude contour. Above the six kilometer elevation the goal
- shall be to keep the surface as close to its primal condition as
- possible.
- The air pressure of the atmosphere shall not exceed 350 millibars at
- six kilometers above the datum, in the equitorial latitudes (30
- degrees north to 30 degrees south).
- * The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere shall not exceed ten
- millibars.
- * The sea level of Oceanus Borealis (the northern sea) shall not
- exceed the -1 kilometer contour.
- * The sea level of the Hellas Basin sea shall not exceed the datum.
- * Argyre Basin is to remain a dry basin.
- * Deliberate introduction of any and all species, natural or
- engineered, is to be approved by the environmental court's agencies,
- after review for environmental impacts on already existing biomes
- and ecologies.
- * No terraforming methods will be employed that release radiation to
- the land, groundwater or air of Mars.
- * No terraforming methods will be employed which are unstable and
- prone to rapid collapse, or that do violent damage to the Martian
- landscape, as determined by the environmental courts.
- # Article Seven. Amendments to this Constitution
- Whenever two-thirds of the members of both houses of the legislature,
- or a majority of the voters in a majority of the towns and settlements
- of Mars, shall propose amendments to this constitution, the proposed
- amendment shall be put to a general global vote during the next
- scheduled global election, and shall require a supermajority of
- two-thirds to pass.
- # Article Eight. Ratification of the Constitution
- After approval of the text of this constitution, point by point, by a
- majority vote of the representatives of the constitutional convention,
- the constitution as a whole shall be presented to all the people of
- Mars over 5 m-years old, for a vote of approval or disapproval, and if
- it receive a supermajority of two-thirds in approval, shall become the
- supreme law of the planet.
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