The United Peoples Of Earth

Writing a good constitution that most people can agree on is difficult. History has shown that a government with a poorly written constitution may fall into chaos. The following are some sound guidelines for writing a solid constitution. (Pay attention members of the European Union, African Union, Union of South American Nations & the United Nations)

I. It should be a challenge to alter a constitution.

A constitution is the highest legal document in a government. By default, it should be harder to change then a national law otherwise its purpose is defeated. That having been said that doesn’t mean it should be too much harder, for if it was change would be almost impossible.

II. A constitution should be moderately simple.

A constitution’s stability is in its simplicity. It should address several basic issues and not much more than that. A constitution should address:

1. The setup of a government that the constitution governs directly.

2. The relationship between said government and the smaller governments that it encompasses.

3. The relationships between the smaller governments within the encompassing government.

4. The relationship between the smaller governments and foreign governments through the encompassing government.

5. The relationships of the people to the encompassing government as well as smaller governments to which certain inhabitants are not citizens. In particular an outline of human rights, freedoms, and liberties.

III. Be moderately generic.

When addressing the above issues try not to address them specifically. For example you do not want to address the required mpg rating of a type of vehicle. Instead you would want to empower a branch of the established government to deal with that issue. The reason being addressing specific issues could deadlock the government since it would require a constitutional change every time an issue needed to be revisited.

IV. Equal Treatment equals broad acceptance.

Finally, if you want to get your constitution accepted by all you must treat all equally so one group doesn’t think they are getting cheated. Laws that apply to one smaller government should apply to all smaller governments. Laws that apply to one person should apply to all peoples. Etc.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 4:19 am by Joseph Sileo and is filed under TUPOE Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.