Section 1. The Global Courts
1. There shall be two global courts, the environmental court and the constitutional court.
2. 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.
3. 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
1. 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 judgments 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.
2. The environmental court shall rule on all cases brought before it in accordance with concepts ensuring 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
1. 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.
2. 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 ensure 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
1. 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
1. The towns, tented canyons, tented craters, and smaller settlements on Mars shall be semiautonomous in relation to the global state and to each other.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. No town or settlement shall practice physical or economic aggression on any other town or settlement. Disagreements between any two or several towns or settlements are to be resolved by arbitration or judicial ruling by the appropriate court.
6. 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
1. Freedom of movement and assembly.
2. Religious freedom.
3. Freedom of speech.
4. Right to vote in global elections not to be abridged.
5. Right to legal counsel, timely trial, and habeas corpus.
6. Freedom from unreasonable search or seizure, double jeopardy, or involuntary self-incrimination.
7. Freedom from cruel or unusual punishments.
8. Right to choice of employment.
9. 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.
10. Right to a meaningful part in the management of one's work.
11. Right to a minimum living wage for life.
12. Right to proper health care, including the body of practices known collectively as the “longevity treatment."
Section 2. Individual Obligations
1. 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.
2. 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
1. 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.
2. The air pressure of the atmosphere shall not exceed 350 millibars at six kilometers above the datum, in the equatorial latitudes (30 degrees north to 30 degrees south).
3. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere shall not exceed ten millibars.
4. The sea level of Oceanus Borealis (the northern sea) shall not exceed the—1 kilometer contour.
5. The sea level of the Hellas Basin sea shall not exceed the datum.
6. Argyre Basin is to remain a dry basin.
7. 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.
8. No terraforming methods will be employed that release radiation to the land, groun
dwater, or air of Mars.
9. 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 court.
Article 7. 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 super-majority of two-thirds to pass.
Article 8. 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 five 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.
Some Worknotes and Commentary on the Constitution, by Charlotte Dorsa Brevia
PREAMBLE Though the very idea of a constitution was opposed by some, the notion of a constitution as a “structure for debate” carried the day, and the process proceeded.
1.1.2 The idea of government as jury duty has rarely been enacted, but the theoretical arguments for the idea were interesting enough to inspire the framers to try it. The possibility that any citizen can become a lawmaker has had profoundly positive psychological and social impacts, even though the actual duma in practice has not usually been the driving force in legislative matters—and, yes, sometimes has been a circus, and always has a (refreshing) feel of unprofessionalism. But combined with the economic autonomy enjoyed by the ordinary person, this tangible sensation of self-government has raised the concept of citizenship to new heights of responsibility, and given people a stronger sense of the collective that has always existed.
2.1.1 A seven-member executive council is derived from the Swiss system. The aim is to depersonalize the executive functions of government, without rendering them inoperative by giving them over to an entire congressional-sized body. Though political fighting among the council membership is inevitable, votes quickly decide arguments and then the executive branch has decided on a course of action. This is not much different than a council of advisers influencing a single executive. But it does remove the tendency to personalize politics, to demonize or valorize individuals when really, in this particular realm of social life, it is policy that matters. The method has worked well in Switzerland, where many well-educated citizens do not know who their president is, but know where they stand on all issues current in the Swiss polity. And the same has proved to be true on Mars.
2.1.2 The Australian ballot system is required so often in the constitution because the framers became convinced that it encourages “reaching to the Other” by candidates. Voters vote for at least three candidates, placing them first second third and so on, and their first choice gets more points in a weighted system. Candidates are thus encouraged to seek second- and third-place votes from voters outside their own constituency, whatever it might be. On Earth this has worked very well in fractured electorates, healing some profound divisions over time, and given the polyglot nature of Martian society, the framers decided it was appropriate for Mars as well.
3.1.3 The splitting of the global judiciary into two branches was questioned at the constitutional congress, but in the end it was decided that so many questions of environmental law lay at the heart of the Martian experience, that it deserved a special body devoted specifically to regulating that function. People at the time argued that the constitutional court was vestigial and redundant, which has not really proven to be true, as its caseload is always filled with significant problems for Martian society. People also argued that the environmental court would, because of the artificial nature of the Martian biosphere itself, become the most powerful political body on Mars. This has indeed been a much more accurate prediction, and it could be argued that Martian history since the constitution has been the story of how the environmental court has integrated its tremendous power into the rest of social life. But this is not necessarily a bad kind of history to have.
3.2.2 Legislating atmospheric pressure has made the Martian constitution the butt of many jokes, but the Grand Gesture, as it was called, to red considerations, is what allowed the constitution to be completed in the first place. And it does no harm to remind people that the environment on Mars is to a certain extent a matter of human choice. This has been true on Earth as well for almost two centuries, but only since the Great Flood has it been a truth generally acknowledged.
3.3.1 This provision attempts to chart the difficult course between local autonomy and global justice. It is the paradox of a free and tolerant society that in order for it to work, intolerance cannot be tolerated. The two injunctions “people can govern themselves” and “no one can oppress another person” must exist as a living contradiction or dynamic tension.
In practice, local laws that violate the Martian spirit of justice (as detailed in the constitution) have stuck out like sore thumbs.
3.3.2 The idea that the constitution should mandate certain kinds of economies was controversial and hotly debated at the constitutional congress, but the argument that prevailed was unassailable: Economics is politics, and a just political existence, a just life, depends on a just economic system. This being the case, the framers were not free to ignore this issue, or all their efforts would have been rendered a kind of huge gesture or joke in the face of history.
As it turns out, the establishment of a democratic participatory economy has been complicated and fraught with problems and argument, but not vicious or even particularly divisive. The old argument that “human nature” could never behave in anything but a feudal economic hierarchal manner disappeared like a mist the moment people were enfranchised in their work, and the capital created by generations of labor turned over to the ownership of the collective, and run by the people who operate it. Hierarchies still exist within each social structure, but in a context of general equality they are seen as the result of work, experience, and age rather than unearned privilege, and so they do not engender the same resentments. In other words, people are still people; argue, resent, hate, are selfish, will share only with kin or those they know, if that is what you mean by “human nature"; but are now in an economic framework where they are roughly equal to those they despise, and cannot grossly oppress or be oppressed by them, financially. This takes the sting out of anger at others, believe me. But you have to have lived under the old regime fully to feel the difference.
3.4.1 This provision provoked much hilarity during the constitutional convention, as being an afterthought body “papering over” profound contradictions in the judiciary and government as designed; it was even predicted that the whole government would eventually be run by this tacked-on reconciliation board.
Indeed this has sometimes proved to be the case. What has to be remembered is that this is not necessarily a bad thing. The fulcrum of government should be in the courts, rather than in, say, army headquarters. I have never found the debates before the reconciliation board to be anything less than fascinating: the whole philosophy of government and human nature, squabbled over in every nit-picking bureaucratic detail. Of course you may say, But this is your job, Charlotte, you like this kind of thing. But I would reply by pointing out how many people are like me, nowadays, and very much enjoy their work; which is no longer time that you give to others to earn the money to do what you want, but actually something you have chosen because you find it interesting (if you are sensible), because you are fully involved in the results of the work, and are recompensed for it in much the same ways and to the same degree as everyone else in the world, with sufficiency at least, and usually much more: This is the situation that the society based on this constitution has man
aged to achieve. That's what I find so interesting about it, you see.
4.2 Again, the great paradox: intolerance of intolerance. But how else can justice be achieved?
4.4 This clause was clearly included to try to drive Martian politics down to the local and up to the global, effectively abolishing anything like the nation-states of Earth. Whether the nation-state was actually the source of Earth's terrible problems is arguable, but no one could see why there should be any nations on Mars, and so the clause passed. No one has missed the nation-state here, and indeed when you look at the word patriotism you can see that it is not a concept Mars need concern itself with.
4.5 Making war unconstitutional; this too was laughed at by many at the convention, but passed nevertheless. Perhaps you can't mandate goodness, but it may be worth trying anyway.
5.1.9 While controversial, this clause alone has been a major force in the struggle for equality and justice on Mars.
5.2.1 This practice was also taken from the Swiss, modified to demilitarize it and make it a matter of public work for the collective well-being of Martian society. The usual pattern has become six months after secondary education, three three-month sessions in the four years immediately after that, and nine more months on an occasional basis in the years after that. Thus the bulk of public service is done by the young and is part of their education. One study showed that over thirty percent of Martian couples met their partners during their public-service time, so if nothing else it works as mixer and matchmaker.
5.2.2 This clause encountered surprisingly little resistance at the convention. A no-brainer, Art called it.
6 Treatment of the land is fundamental to any government concerned with permaculture, that is, with stewardship of the biosphere for the good of future generations. Society is “a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” (Edmund Burke.) And so we must care for the land.
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