The Founding Charter
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The Metaverse Republic
Founding charter
Neither this document, nor any part of it, is or shall ever be, a source of law in any sense.
Article I – purpose of the Metaverse Republic
The Metaverse Republic is a non-profit-making organisation whose purpose is to provide a functioning, professional, high-quality justice system, with real powers of enforcement, and backed by a democratic parliament, to the virtual world of SecondLife, and any other virtual world in which a need for such a system may arise.
Article II – purpose of this charter
This founding charter is a document whose purpose is to set out, in general terms, the aims of the Metaverse Republic, and the means by which those aims are to be achieved, and of providing newcomers to the system with a rough overview of how it is designed to work.
This charter is not written to serve as a source of law or any sort of legal instrument, nor a document that affects the interpretation of the constitution of the Metaverse Republic, or any other legal material. The intention is that the aims, and means of achieving them, will be refined in detailed, formal legal instruments, and refined further by common law precedent, which, in turn, can be modified by detailed legislation passed by the Parliament, and that those refinements will always prevail over the more approximate statements in this charter, or any similar such document.
Article III – general overview of the system at inauguration
At inauguration (that is, the date on which the Metaverse Republic system first comes into effect), the system will serve only the virtual world SecondLife. There will be a system of courts, where anybody will be able to file cases. The courts will resolve any disputed matters between the parties according to a formal procedure, will deliver a judgment, and make orders. The courts will use a common law model, roughly based on the English system (the original common law system, which, with adaptations, is used in the US, Canada, Australia and most British Commonwealth countries), in which, where there is no legislative or constitutional rule governing any particular issue that the court has to resolve, the court will devise its own rule (based largely on what fits best into the existing scheme of rules), and that decision will form a precedent that binds courts of the same or lower levels in future cases.
As their ultimate sanction, the courts will have at their disposal the penalty of banishment. That will entail the avatar name(s) of the party subject to that penalty being placed on a database, linked to in-world objects which people, “subscribersâ€, would be able to obtain freely, place on their virtual land without charge. The objects would then eject anybody whose name is on the database from the land on which it has been placed, with the exception that it would not eject landowners from their own land. The banishment objects might acquire further functions with time.
If and when additional enforcement tools are developed in SecondLife, or the Metaverse Republic is propagated to other virtual worlds with different tools or architectures, then different ultimate means of enforcement may be used instead of or as well as the banishment database system.
Anybody who has been a subscriber for a fixed minimum amount of time will be entitled to vote in regular elections to the Parliament, as will any citizen of any subscribing local community approved in accordance with Article XI, who has been a citizen of that community for the minimum term required for subscribers. The Parliament will be a legislative chamber, and will have the power to pass legislation which is binding on the courts, and which over-rides any common law precedents set by the courts.
There will be a written constitution which will be the ultimate source of all law in the Metaverse Republic. Institutions of state will have powers only in so far as they are expressly provided for in the constitution. The Parliament, like all other institutions of state, will be required to act only in accordance with the constitution, including in the legislation it passes. To that end, there will be a Constitutional Committee, independent of the Parliament, and also of the judiciary, which will have to ratify any legislation that the Parliament passes. It will be entitled (and required) to refuse to ratify legislation only on the ground that it exceeds Parliament’s powers as set out in the constitution either in substance or in form. Decisions of the constitutional committee will be able to be appealed to a superior court.
The legislature will not have the power to change the constitution. Instead, the constitution would be able to be changed only by a body called the Great Council, which would be convened only when special conditions are met, and only for the purposes of debating on, and deciding whether to, make a specific change to the constitution. The Great Council would comprise members of all of the different institutions of state.
There will also be a small executive committee to keep the Metaverse Republic running effectively. It will not have substantial political power, but will be partly elected.
To maintain separation of the powers, no physical person will be allowed to hold more than one high public office at once in the Metaverse Republic, whether through multiple avatars or not (and technological efforts will be made to ensure that this is properly enforced). This extends to holding offices in local communities with charters granting them rule-making powers, such that no person will be allowed to hold both local and federal office at the same time.
Article IV – the Constitution
The written constitution will be the ultimate source of law for the Metaverse Republic. Bodies in the Metaverse Republic will only have powers in so far as they derive, directly or indirectly, from the constitution. The constitution will set out in detail the nature of the bodies, their powers and duties, and how each of the bodies relate to each other, as well as detailed rules about the operation of the bodies. The constitution will be drafted in precise terms to minimise ambiguity. This charter serves the function of providing an easily readable summary of the system without the detail.
The only way to change the constitution will be by a resolution of the Great Council, in accordance with the rules for such resolutions explicitly stated in the constitution. Some parts of the constitution (such as the rules for how the constitution can be changed) will not be able to be changed at all. Other fundamental parts may require a referendum of all voters in addition to a resolution of the Great Council.
Article V – the judiciary
The professional judiciary is the focus of the Metaverse Republic. It will be a common law system, loosely based on the English system, but with some substantial adaptations. There will be no separation between civil and criminal law: anybody will be entitled to bring a case (except for impeachment proceedings). If the person against whom a case is brought admits, or the person bringing the case proves, culpability, then the court may impose a penal order in addition to any other sort of order (such as an injunction, compensation or restitution). The ultimate penal order would, at inauguration, be addition to the banishment database, either for a fixed term, an indeterminate term (for example, until compliance with a court order), or permanently. Permanent banishment would be used only in the gravest of cases. Breaches of court orders would usually be considered to be culpable.
Any user of any virtual world in which the Metaverse Republic operates would be entitled to bring a case before the courts, and would be entitled to bring it against any other such user or group of users (including corporations of any sort), or other institution of state of the Metaverse Republic.
Cases will be decided according to a set of formal procedural rules determined by the senior judges. Final decisions in cases (such as trials of fact) would be made by a live hearing in an in-world courtroom. Some interim decisions might be made asynchronously on the (electronic) papers. If desired by the parties, and if it is practicable, juries will be used in some cases to decide questions of fact, but not of law.
Judges would be selected on merit by the existing senior judiciary, and, apart from part-time judges, would have full security of tenure, in order to ensure that the judiciary is fully politically independent. There would be four ranks of judge: (1) Chief Judge; (2) Deputy Chief Judge; (3) Judge; and (4) Deputy Judge. The Chief Judge would decide which judge heard which case, but would be able to delegate that power to the Deputy Chief Judges, of whom there would be two. The Deputy Chief Judges, along with the Chief Judge, would have the power to make judicial appointments, approve the procedural rules, and draft the rules of ethics for judges. Judges would be permanent, full-time appointments. Deputy Judges would be lawyers who practise before the Metaverse Republic courts who sit as judges part-time.
There will be two levels of court: the General Court and the High Court. The General Court will hear most general first-instance litigation, and will be presided over by a single judge (of any rank), and, in appropriate cases, a jury. The High Court will hear appeals from the General Court, and also some first instance cases where it is merited or required by the Constitution (such as for impeachment hearings). The High Court will be presided over by at least three judges, not being deputy judges, and, in appropriate cases, a jury. Appeals to the High Court from the General Court will not be an automatic rehearing: the appellant will have to show that the General Court made some error in law or procedure, or that there is important new evidence that could not have been obtained at the first instance hearing before an appeal could be allowed. The reason for this is the importance of the finality of litigation. It will also tend to make proceedings less costly and take less time.
The courts will be administratively and financially independent of the rest of the state. They will be administered by a body called the Judiciary Commission. The head (chair) of the Judiciary Commission will be responsible for the finances, resources and administration of the court system.
The courts will be funded by charging the losing litigant in each case costs. Where there is no clear loser, the courts will have the power to apportion court costs between the parties. The costs will be based on a fixed, graded scale published in advance as part of the procedural rules. The courts will also have the power to award costs to the successful litigant, including legal fees. Any fines would not be paid to the Judiciary Commission, but to the general treasury, over which the Judiciary Commission would have no control.
The principle of security of tenure means that judges will only be able to be removed in very limited circumstances indeed. A judge would only be able to be removed from office following an impeachment hearing at the High Court, and only for very limited grounds, including corruption, bias, insanity, or a serious breach of the strict rules of ethics drafted by the senior judiciary. Impeachment proceedings could only be brought by certain officers of state, not private individuals. Wherever the Chief Judge is a party to a case before the courts, including impeachment proceedings, he or she would lose, for that case only, the power to allocate judges to cases, which would be passed to one of the Deputy Chief Judges.
A Judge (other than a Deputy Judge) who retired or resigned would not be permitted to act as an advocate in the courts of the Metaverse Republic after having been a judge. Judges would be permitted to take sabbaticals, but it would be rare for a judge who had resigned to be re-appointed as a judge afterwards.
Article VI – the Parliament
The Parliament will be the legislature for the Metaverse Republic. The legislature will be unicameral (have only one chamber), but its legislation will be subject to the ratification process by the Constitutional Committee. The Parliament will comprise members elected democratically by popular vote. All subscribers and citizens of approved subscribing communities will be entitled to vote, and each such person will have one vote. When the technology permits it, steps will be taken to ensure that each physical human is only ever able to cast one vote in any election, no matter how many otherwise eligible virtual world avatars that he or she holds.
The number of Members of Parliament will vary depending on a formula based on the number of subscribers and citizens of subscribing local communities, always with a minimum of five members. If fewer candidates stand than there are available slots, then that fewer number will be elected. The Parliament will not be able to pass any legislation or resolutions with fewer than three members.
Provided that the legislation that Parliament passes conforms with the requirements of the Constitution, the Parliament may legislate on any topic that it pleases, and its legislation, once ratified, will be binding on the courts of all levels, and displace any previous common law precedents on the same subject in so far as they conflict.
The Parliament will have the power to call before it any holder of public office in the Metaverse Republic, and require that person to answer questions about the conduct of her or his official duties within the Metaverse Republic in public session, subject to certain limits, such as that judges may not be asked about decisions in individual cases.
Legislation and resolutions will be passed in most cases by a simple majority vote amongst the members. Initiation of legislation or resolutions will be able to be made only by Members of Parliament. To ensure high quality drafting, proposed legislation will have to be passed first as a resolution, describing the overall function of the proposed legislation, and, in general terms, how that is sought to be achieved; once passed (with amendments if so decided), a drafting committee, constituted in part by Members of Parliament specified in the resolution, and part by legal experts drawn from the relevant department of the executive will be convened to draft the legislation. A simple majority vote in the drafting committee in favour of any given draft will allow the final Bill to be presented before Parliament and either passed, or referred back to the drafting committee with instructions to redraft it.
To provide for particular legislative needs during the early period of the Metaverse Republic, the Constitution will contain a schedule of inaugural articles. These articles will have the same effect as individual pieces of legislation or local charters (on which see below), save that they would only be able to be repealed, revoked or amended with a two thirds majority in Parliament, rather than a simple majority. No new inaugural articles will be able to be created after inauguration. Inaugural articles would provide for things such as government bonds which need to be in place before Parliament is first convened, but would be inappropriate to have in the main body of the Constitution.
Article VII – the Constitutional Committee
There will be a special Constitutional Committee, independent of the legislature and judiciary, which will examine all bills passed by the Parliament to ensure that they conform to the constitution, both in their substance, and that they were passed according to the appropriate procedure in Parliament. A Bill will only become law upon ratification by the Constitutional Committee. Decisions of the Constitutional Committee will be able to be appealed to the High Court, but will only be able to be overturned if the all of the (minimum of three) presiding judges agree unanimously to do so.
Members of the Constitutional Committee will comprise as good a set of legal and constitutional experts as can be found, and will be able to govern the details of its own internal procedure (although certain principles, such as that the decision as to whether to ratify is subject to a simple majority vote, will be constitutionally fixed). Members will be appointed by a two stage process, being nominated by a vote amongst existing members, and confirmed by a vote in the Public Oversight Panel, each of simple majority. It will also have a minimum and maximum size. Members will have security of tenure, and will only be able to be removed in the same way and for the same reasons as judges.
Nobody who has been a judge within the past year will be permitted to sit on the Constitutional Committee, and, conversely, nobody who has sat on the Constitutional Committee within the past year will be permitted to become a judge.
Article VIII – the Executive
The Executive will be responsible for the general management and upkeep of the Metaverse Republic. The Executive will not have substantial political power: it will not be able to initiate or veto legislation, and the executive functions will be, given the nature of the system, inherently limited.
The Executive will control the Metaverse Republic’s finances and land (apart from that controlled by the Judiciary Commission), will be responsible for the upkeep and development of the banishment database system (and any other tools used in future), will collect fines, and will manage public relations.
The executive will comprise elected and appointed elements: there will be an elected President and Deputy President, and a small committee of appointed officers, each with specific functions (such as finance). Important executive decisions (such as the appointment of a new executive officer) will require a majority vote in the Executive Committee (that is, the committee comprising all members of the Executive), although the President will have the power to veto any such resolution, which power will be delegable to the Deputy President in the President’s absence. Appointed executive members will have to be confirmed in their appointments half-way through the President’s electoral term, by simple majority vote (which the President may, as with any other such vote, veto) amongst the Executive.
The non-elective portions of the executive will collectively be responsible for administering all popular elections, and checking eligibility to vote.
Article IX – the Great Council
The Great Council will be the only body that will be able to change, and the body that exists for the sole purpose of changing, the constitution. It will be able to be convened only by a special petition, which will have to be signed (electronically) by a certain proportion of those eligible to vote, and a certain proportion of a fixed set of officers of state, containing the proposed amendment to the constitution.
The exact composition of the Great Council would be determined separately for each session (a single session debates only one specific petition, but will be able to be adjourned), but will comprise three Members of Parliament, elected by Parliament as a whole for the purpose, three members of the Executive, elected by the Executive Committee, the Chief Judge and two Deputy Chief Judges (or a substitute Judge, not Deputy Judge, if one or more of the senior judiciary cannot attend, appointed as a proxy by the non-attender), three members of the Constitutional Committee, elected by the Constitutional Committee for the purpose, and two members of the Public Oversight Panel (elected by the members of the Public Oversight Panel for the purpose). Of a total of 14 members, at least 11 must vote in favour of the proposed amendment contained in the petition in order for the constitution to be amended.
In addition, certain passages of the constitution will be marked as requiring a referendum in order to be changed. The passage by the Great Council of a resolution to change one of the marked passages would be the trigger for such a referendum to be called. Only a vote in favour at the referendum would permit the constitution to be changed in those circumstances. Some passages of the constitution may not be able to be changed at all.
Article X – the Public Oversight Panel
There will be a Public Oversight Panel, directly elected at the same time and in the same fashion as the Parliament, containing a minimum of three members, and a maximum calculated from a formula based on the number of subscribers and citizens of subscribing local communities.
The Public Oversight Panel will be charged with general oversight of the administration of the Metaverse Republic, and, to that end, will have the power to call before it any holder of public office in the Metaverse Republic, and require that person to answer questions about the conduct of her or his official duties within the Metaverse Republic in public session, subject to certain limits, such as that judges may not be asked about decisions in individual cases. It will also be charged with conducting investigations, writing reports and making recommendations about the conduct of public affairs in the Metaverse Republic, as it sees fit.
Like most other official bodies in the Metaverse Republic, the Public Oversight Panel will have standing to bring impeachment proceedings against any other public officer before the High Court.
Article XI – local communities
As an alternative to direct subscription to the banishment database by individuals, entire local communities in the virtual worlds in which the Metaverse Republic operates will be able to subscribe to the Metaverse Republic. To do so, they would subscribe all of the land that they control to the banishment database (perhaps by way of estate banishment, or something approximately equivalent; this principle might be modified as virtual world technology develops), and all of the citizens of that local community would, by virtue of their membership of that local community, be entitled to vote.
To enable local communities to have access to a formal, fair and sophisticated justice system with strong methods of enforcement for their own local rules, which otherwise they would not have the resources to achieve, the Metaverse Republic will, in some cases, enforce locally rules specific to certain local communities. Those local communities would, in some senses, stand in relation to the Metaverse Republic as an individual state would stand to a federal body in a loose confederation. Reciprocally, local communities with their own means of enforcement (such as revocation of local citizenship) might be required in their local charters to use them to enforce orders of the courts of the Metaverse Republic.
Some local communities might have their own local courts. Where these are provided for in a local community’s charter, the federal courts of the Metaverse Republic would have the power to enforce the orders of the local courts, and vice versa. Where there are local courts, they would be the institutions that would primarily enforce local rules, although with a right of appeal to the High Court. The Constitution would set out the relationship between the jurisdiction of the federal and local courts (see the Metaverse Republic protocol on the jurisdiction of local courts for details).
In order for a local community to subscribe en bloc to the Metaverse Republic, it would have to apply for, and be granted, a local charter. That charter would set out, amongst other things, who is eligible to be a citizen of that local community (and therefore entitled to vote in elections to the Metaverse Republic), whether that local community has the power to make local rules enforced by the Metaverse Republic’s judicial system, and, if so, what those rules may be about, how they be made, and other matters related to the local constitutional arrangements. The charters of local communities, especially those whose citizenship is not entirely based on ownership of land, would have to set out the technical means that will be used to check who is a legitimate citizen of that community and therefore entitled to vote. Local charters without rules enforcement would be relatively simple, whist those containing provisions on rule enforcement are likely to be a little more detailed.
In order for any application for a local charter to be granted, it would have to be approved by Parliament, the Executive Committee and the Constitutional Committee. The Constitutional Committee would have the power to decline any application for a local charter only if it provided for the enforcement of local rules, and on the ground that the constitution of the locality, or its rules, are at odds with any of the provisions of the constitution of the Metaverse Republic, or one of a list of enumerated principles of good governance set out in the Constitution for the purpose of approving local constitutions. Those principles would include things such as the separation of the powers, adherence to the rule of law, and adequate publication of legislation and information about how the legal and political systems work. The Executive would have the power to decline any application for a local charter, but only on operational grounds. Parliament would be entitled to grant or decline any application on any ground that it saw fit.
Once all three bodies approve an application for a local charter, anybody who has been a citizen of the locality in question for the minimum period will be entitled to vote in all Metaverse Republic elections, and, if the charter included provision for local rules enforcement, the courts of the Metaverse Republic will have the power (and duty) to enforce the local rules (only in the defined locality, which may or may not be a (virtual) geographical locality) after a date appointed in the resolution by Parliament.
Either Parliament, or the Constitutional Committee, would have the power to revoke a local charter, the former for any reason by majority vote, the latter only on the ground that the local constitution has changed such that the local rules have become unconstitutional by the constitution of the Metaverse Republic. Once a local charter is revoked in this way, the locality will not be able to become chartered again except by starting the application process afresh.
If the government of any local community acts unlawfully (for example, by breaching its own constitution or a provision of its local charter), the High Court would have the power, if somebody brought a case before it about such an unlawful act, to suspend its local charter. When a local charter is suspended by the High Court, it can only be restored by a further order of the High Court ending the suspension; no fresh application for a renewed local charter would be allowed, since the existing one would still be in place, albeit suspended by the court. Suspension of a local charter would be the ultimate sanction of the court against a locality acting unlawfully, and would only be used after other means (such as proceedings in a local court, if there is one, or an order by the High Court to rectify the unlawfulness) had failed (or if they were unavailable), and in any event only in cases of serious unlawfulness.
Article XII – technology
At inauguration, the tools available will focus on the virtual world of SecondLife and will be limited to enforcing the decisions through the banishment of avatars, and the holding of elections.
The banishment technology developed will comprise three primary components: (1) a database of names of avatar who are banished, and the management tools to edit that database and the related information on the case and the decision in which each person was banished, which will be operated through a web interface for maximum convenience; (2) a consultation interface that will allow anyone to look up past decisions, also operated through a web interface; (3) an enforcement object capable of ejecting and banning anyone listed on the banishment database from the land on which it is placed; this tool will be an in-world object to be placed on its owner’s land and will be available for free. An important aim of the technology is to enable and promote the widest possible distribution of the in-world banishment object.
The election tool will comprise three components: (1) a database holding the questions to be submited for vote to the Metaverse Republic subscribers and the results of the elections. The management of this database will be operated through a web interface; (2) a consultation interface that will allow anyone to look up past elections results, also operated through a web interface; (3) an in-world object taking care of requesting all subscribers which operate a Metaverse Republic enforcement object to participate to the elections and vote.
To achieve those objectives, the Metaverse Republic will develop its own set of tools and/or participate in the enhancement of tools already available.
Three paths of evolution are foreseen for the tools. The first path of evolution aims at enhancing the manageability of the database of court decisions; the second path aims at the widespread distribution of the banishment tool; and the third path will be to update the enforcement object with enhanced enforcement tools provided by the virtual world infrastructure.
It is expected that this tool will need to evolve to provide a document management and retrieval system for documents relating to all cases that have been brought before the courts, with appropriate visibility to the various readers.
The Metaverse Republic will seek means to be compatible with other banishment tools. This will be done as and when it is convenient to do so, with the purpose of ensuring that the decisions of the courts of the Metaverse Republic are enforced in as widely as possible.
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