How to Make a Constitution

[Galicia-Podillya]

Hello there, this forum is about making a constitution. I know what you'll say, "But you cant make a Constitution in NationStates."
I know, but you can technically make a Constitution in NationStates. By making a factbook, and classifying it: Factbook: Legislature, or Bulletin: Policy. (i think Factbook: Legislature is more appropriate. Then, get a tutorial on how to organize a Constitution and make it, or copy a Constitution, and edit it. OK, that's all. Bye!

[Comfed]

Step 1: learn how to correctly spell "Constitution"

[Frisbeeteria]

Step 2: move the thread to the correct sub-forum.

[Galicia-Podillya]

pls stop harassing me over practically nothing

[Otvorata]

Constitutions aren't terribly hard to write if you know what you're doing. For the most part you're free to plagiarize feel inspired by any sort of real life constitutions when drafting your own on this site --- my constitution is stolen from heavily inspired by the 1936 and 1977 constitutions of the Soviet Union.

First things first: a preamble. In short, a preamble is an introductory statement that lays out the reasons a law has been drafted. For example, the United States Constitution's preamble states that its purpose is to "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," while the original Soviet constitution simply states that its federal republics "unite themselves in one federal State–'The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.'" Simple.

Preambles can be of varying length. For example, the preamble of the 1987 Filipino constitution has only 75 words while the 1979 constitution of Iran has a whopping 13 paragraphs with 3,073 words. Usually, a preamble should be limited to a single succinct paragraph, but it's perfectly fine to flesh it out a bit more.

Secondly, sections. A constitution is divided into different sections, usually called articles or chapters. Each section focuses on a specific topic; for example, the American constitution is divided into seven different sections, which in order focus on how Congress is organized, how the Presidency is organized, how the judicial system is organized, how federal and state governments are organized, how the Constitution is amended, the powers of the Constitution, and how the Constitution is ratified.

Thirdly, and most importantly, individual powers. What can and can't the government do? How is the government portrayed? Is the government elected or appointed? How is it set up?

Individual powers, a blanket term for the points in each section, are the meat of your constitution. They're what really matter, more than the preamble or the sections, and define the powers of the constitution and government. A single point can do something as innocuous as define a flag or a national seal but also helps set up how the government is swept into power and the powers of said government. When combined, these points lay the foundation for the powers given to and withheld from the national government.

Individual powers are typically short sentences or paragraphs. A single power won't define how the legislature is elected alongside how the economy is set up, or anything like that. They are succinct descriptors of specific rights. One point will describe how the government is elected and another will describe which branch of the government can sign treaties. These individual powers will go into their respective sections, much like placing the correct file in the filing cabinet. When planned out, you should be able to form a neat and readable law of the land.

[Dormill and Stiura]

I have at one point considered a guide on this, but I'm instead going to drop this (relatively dated) handbook on writing a Constitution in a post-conflict situation. That said, the details included may also be valid for Constitutions made without conflict as a part of the background. https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacema ... PG2007.pdf

Constitutions aren't terribly hard to write if you know what you're doing. For the most part you're free to plagiarize feel inspired by any sort of real life constitutions when drafting your own on this site --- my constitution is stolen from heavily inspired by the 1936 and 1977 constitutions of the Soviet Union.

First things first: a preamble. In short, a preamble is an introductory statement that lays out the reasons a law has been drafted. For example, the United States Constitution's preamble states that its purpose is to "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," while the original Soviet constitution simply states that its federal republics "unite themselves in one federal State–'The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.'" Simple.

Preambles can be of varying length. For example, the preamble of the 1987 Filipino constitution has only 75 words while the 1979 constitution of Iran has a whopping 13 paragraphs with 3,073 words. Usually, a preamble should be limited to a single succinct paragraph, but it's perfectly fine to flesh it out a bit more.

Secondly, sections. A constitution is divided into different sections, usually called articles or chapters. Each section focuses on a specific topic; for example, the American constitution is divided into seven different sections, which in order focus on how Congress is organized, how the Presidency is organized, how the judicial system is organized, how federal and state governments are organized, how the Constitution is amended, the powers of the Constitution, and how the Constitution is ratified.

Thirdly, and most importantly, individual powers. What can and can't the government do? How is the government portrayed? Is the government elected or appointed? How is it set up?

Individual powers, a blanket term for the points in each section, are the meat of your constitution. They're what really matter, more than the preamble or the sections, and define the powers of the constitution and government. A single point can do something as innocuous as define a flag or a national seal but also helps set up how the government is swept into power and the powers of said government. When combined, these points lay the foundation for the powers given to and withheld from the national government.

Individual powers are typically short sentences or paragraphs. A single power won't define how the legislature is elected alongside how the economy is set up, or anything like that. They are succinct descriptors of specific rights. One point will describe how the government is elected and another will describe which branch of the government can sign treaties. These individual powers will go into their respective sections, much like placing the correct file in the filing cabinet. When planned out, you should be able to form a neat and readable law of the land.

This, in turn, is also pretty good for setting out the basic details, some other details I feel should be relevant are:

• The main role of a Constitution, in general, is to set out the basic nature of your State, Regime, and Government, certain details like delineating the makeup of your branches of government (such as how Cabinets are formed or how Ministries/Departments are filled) may not be necessary but it depends on the conditions the Constitution is written in and the overall goals of the drafters.
• Constitutions don't necessarily have to be directly codified, it's probably even possible to have multiple explicit documents make up the Constitutional/Basic Law. The United Kingdom is the best real-world example I know of for a state with an uncodified Constitution, but there are several other documents that make up British Constitutional Law.
• Constitutions generally (of those that I've seen) tend to be written aspirationally. In the sense that the Constitution is everything the State, Regime, and Government aspires to be. Particularly for authoritarian states, saying the quiet part of the nature of their authoritarianism out loud may not be the goal for the drafters. Similarly, it is reasonable to spell out the authoritarian nature of the state, regime, and/or government explicitly but, again, it might likely come out with aspirational language. Something along the lines of "Under the guidance of our Glorious Leader, we set out in this Constitution to..." or "The powers delineated by this Constitution are subject to the Supreme Authority of our Glorious Leader..."
• Constitutions are almost always written in the historical context of the nation-state of the drafters, or the certain political situation they find themselves in (see the relative brevity of the US Constitution against the lengthy nature of the EU Constitutional treaties or the difference in more modern Constitutions against older ones). I advise having that context in mind as you search for Constitutions to write from or as you write your own from scratch, as that will inform most of what you choose to include and what you choose not to include.

[Rick Perry]

pls stop harassing me over practically nothing

Welcome to NationStates you'll get used to it after you first month

[Itielia]

Constitutions are really big documents, the fact most NSers tend to ignore and make provisions that should be not in the fundamental law, the Constitution of Japan, when translated in English, has appr. 5000 words, modern constitutions tend to have 10-12,000 words when translated to English.

Usually constitutions regulate the following
1. Civil Rights and Obligations
2. Fundamental principles of state
3. How executive, legislative, and judiciary powers are structured and their relationship to each other
4. Local governments, Relationship between the states and federal government (if federation)
5. How the constitution itself is amended

Optionally also
1. Government Finances
2. Civil-military relations
3. Economy
4. Social system itself (unique to Soviet and Chinese Constitutions)
5. Public oversight over the government
6. International relations

US Constitution is inspiration for most modern constitutions, but if you want to see how modern constitutions in liberal democratic countries look like, look at these
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitu ... orea_(1987)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Norway (1814)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitu ... ugal,_1976
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitu ... h_Republic (1958)

Constitution of Japan is a good example, its a barebones constitution, so its format is useful for NS.

https://japan.kantei.go.jp/constitution ... ion_e.html

[Itielia]

Constitutions are almost always written in the historical context of the nation-state of the drafters, or the certain political situation they find themselves in (see the relative brevity of the US Constitution against the lengthy nature of the EU Constitutional treaties or the difference in more modern Constitutions against older ones). I advise having that context in mind as you search for Constitutions to write from or as you write your own from scratch, as that will inform most of what you choose to include and what you choose not to include.

OR include, a lot of unique clauses are reactions to previous abuses of powers, like single-term presidencies in South Korea and Mexico, despite their systems being modelled on the US, or establishing constitutional obligation to overthrown dictatorship in Germany.

Similarly, it is reasonable to spell out the authoritarian nature of the state, regime, and/or government explicitly but, again, it might likely come out with aspirational language.

Most authoritarian countries maintain constitutions that establishes some form of democracy with checks and balances and elected parliament, albeit most of the time constitution is either ignored, or interpreted in a way that favours the government.

[Republica Federal de Catalunya]

I as my Nation is Federal I inspired myself with the Constition of Belgium. Except that mine is a Republic and the President has powers comparable to the French Republic.
There is a Preamble and 3 blocks of articles.
1st is the State Structure and their institutions.
2nd the Bill of Rights
3rd the separation of powers Checks and Balances.

[Cappedore]

I would advise this structure for constitutions:

1. A 'preamble' - an introduction to the constitution and the article that 'establishes' the nation / organization in question.

2. A charter of rights - list out what fundamental, core rights your citizens have.

3. An article on citizens - how do citizens become citizens? What happens to bad citizens? What happens to good citizens?

4. The government - Using sections, list out however branches of government your nation / organization has and what they do, e.g. an Executive, Legislature, and a Judiciary. Try to be as in depth as possible, e.g. is the Executive directly elected? Or is the nation semi-autocratic, with a monarch at the helm? On legislature, how many chambers of legislature are there? One? Two? Fifteen? What do they do, and how do they do it? On judiciary, who leads it? How does it deal with cases and matters of law? Is it linked to the other two branches in any way?

5. Amendments - how will this constitution go on to be amended in future?

6. Transitory Provision - you want to make sure that your constitution can be correctly ratified.

[New Aeyariss]

First of, learn about the political systems.

Read up what presidential system is, the variations of parliamentary system, etc.

This ought to also help you in RP as your characters would have defined roles.