We the people of Mars have gathered here on Pavonis Mons in the year 2128 to write a constitution which will serve as a legal framework for an independent planetary government. We intend this constitution to be a flexible document subject to change over time in the light of experience and changing historical conditions, but assert here that we hope to establish a government that will forever uphold the following principles: the rule of law; the equality of all before the law; individual freedom of movement, association, and expression; freedom from political or economic tyranny; control of one's work life and the value thereof; communal stewardship of the planet's natural resources; and respect for the planet's primal heritage.
The legislative body for Martian global issues will be a two-housed congress, consisting of a duma and a senate.
The duma will be composed of five hundred members, selected every m-year by a lottery drawn from a list of all Martian residents over ten m-years old. It will meet on Ls=0 and and Ls=180, every m-year, and stay in session for as long as necessary to complete its business.
The senate will be composed of one senator from each town or settlement on Mars with a population larger than five hundred people (changed by Amendment 22 to three thousand people), elected every two m-years, using an Australian ballot system. The senate will remain permanently in session, aside from breaks of no more than a month out of every twelve.
The duma will elect the executive council's seven members, using an Australian ballot system.
The senate will elect one third of the members of the global environmental court, and one half of the members of the constitutional court, using an Australian ballot system.
The congress will pass laws enabling it to: lay and collect taxes equitably from the towns and settlements represented in the senate; to provide for the common defense of Mars; to regulate commerce on Mars, and with other worlds; to regulate immigration to Mars; to print money and regulate its value; to form a criminal court system; and to form a standing police and security group to enforce the laws and defend the commonwealth.
All laws passed by the congress shall be subject to review by the executive council; if the executive council vetoes a proposed law, the congress can override the veto with a two-thirds vote.
All laws passed by the congress shall also be subject to review by the constitutional and environmental courts, and a veto by these courts cannot be overridden, but shall be grounds for rewriting the law if the congress sees fit, after which the process of passing the law shall begin again.
The executive council shall be formed of seven members, elected by the duma every two m-years. Executive council members must be Martian residents at the time of their election, and at least ten m-years old.
The executive council shall elect one of its members as council president, using an Australian ballot system. It shall also elect or appoint a reasonable number of officers needed to help perform its various functions.
The executive council shall command the global police and security force, in the defense of Mars, and in the upholding and enforcement of the constitution on Mars.
The executive council shall have the power, subject to the review and approval of the congress, to make treaties with Terran political and economic bodies (and the other political entities in the solar system, as stated in Amendment 15).
The executive council will elect or appoint one-third of the members of the environmental court, and one half of the members of the constitutional court.
There shall be two global courts, the environmental court and the constitutional court.
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.
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.
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 judgements 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.
The environmental court shall rule on all cases brought before it in accordance with concepts insuring 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.
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.
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 insure that employees own their enterprises and the capital and profits associated with them; and oversee the welfare of a participatory, democratic economy.
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
The towns, tented canyons, tented craters, and smaller settlements on Mars shall be semi-autonomous in relation to the global state and to each other. 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.
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.
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.
No town or settlement shall practice physical or economic aggression on any other town and settlement. Disagreements between any two or several towns or settlements are to be resolved by arbitration or judicial ruling by the appropriate court.
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.
- Freedom of movement and assembly.
- Religious freedom.
- Freedom of speech.
- Right to vote in global elections not to be abridged.
- Right to legal counsel, timely trial, and habeus corpus.
- Freedom from unreasonable search or seizure, double jeopardy, or involuntary self-incrimination.
- Freedom from cruel or unusual punishments.
- Right to choice of employment.
- 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.
- Right to a meaningful part in the management of one's work.
- Right to a minimum living wage for life.
- Right to proper health care, including the body of practices known collectively as the "longevity treatment."
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.
The right to own or bear lethal weapons is expressly denied to everyone on Mars, including police or riot control officers.
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.
The air pressure of the atmosphere shall not exceed 350 millibars at six kilometers above the datum, in the equitorial latitudes (30 degrees north to 30 degrees south).
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The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere shall not exceed ten millibars.
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The sea level of Oceanus Borealis (the northern sea) shall not exceed the -1 kilometer contour.
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The sea level of the Hellas Basin sea shall not exceed the datum.
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Argyre Basin is to remain a dry basin.
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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.
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No terraforming methods will be employed that release radiation to the land, groundwater or air of Mars.
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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 courts.
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 supermajority of two-thirds to pass.
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 5 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.