Constitution Writing?

[Taosun]

Hello, people of the NationStates Forums. I've been considering writing a constitution for my nation, but I'm not sure if I'm up to the task, considering my relatively lackluster writing ability and tendency to abandon projects. Does anyone have any tips for writing a good constitution?

[Nascadia]

im not a genius either but i can suggest you have a look at what the internet offers you, here are some of the best ones i personally found:

https://www.kapiolani.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/RIO_sample_constitution.pdf
https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/studentlife/groupres/newgroups/constitutions
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=545498&p=41289694&hilit=constitution+constitution+template#p41289694

if you ever need any help simply tg me anything!

[Vendellamoore]

Hello, people of the NationStates Forums. I've been considering writing a constitution for my nation, but I'm not sure if I'm up to the task, considering my relatively lackluster writing ability and tendency to abandon projects. Does anyone have any tips for writing a good constitution?

I'd say do a lot of thinking and imagining to figure out how different branches of government and hierarchical structures interact. You want to make sure your constitution ensures stability and doesn't delegate power too strongly to one branch or another. That's my advice. In my constitution which I'm still writing, I made 4 branches of government for Order, Legislation, Enforcement and Justice.

[Sliabh Grianas]

Think about what type of government you want, what rights you want to codify, what checks and balances you might want between however many branches you have. Research the constitutions of real world countries, modern and old. My constitution, for example, has three, or perhaps technically four: the executive, legislative, judicial, and popular (the people). They all have checks and balances, including the people. For example, a popular referendum is capable of vetoing legislation or overriding an executive veto.

In terms of administration, is your country a unitary state (subdivisions governed by the central government, such as the UK), a confederation (states loosely associated by a relatively weaker central government, such as the US under the Articles of Confederation or, in a way, the European Union), or a federation (the central government and state/province governments share powers, such as the modern US).

If you decide to go with the typical three branch structure (executive, legislative, and judicial), some primary considerations are how many houses you want in your legislature, how delegates to the houses are elected or appointed, and whether or not the legislative has lawmaking power or is simply advisory. With the executive, is the executive power elected, or is it something like a monarch or dictator? If elected, is the executive popularly elected (as in the presidential system) or elected by the legislature (as in the parliamentary system) or elected by some other body (such as in the US, where the President is elected by the Electoral College)?

Decide what rights and protections to codify. Look at documents such as The UN Declaration on Human Rights, the US Bill of Rights, etc. Look at other countries constitutions to see what rights they have detailed.

[Bilancorn]

I've a factbook with my own Constitution. Its still WIP and pretty basic, but maybe you can get some inspiration.