A CONSTITUTION FOR INTEGRITY IN POLITICS

The Masses have been Awakened in the UK.

The dawning of a new political age has hit the United Kingdom because of the way over 60% of the current crop of Politicians in the House of Parliament have CORRUPTED British DEMOCRACY in politics over this BREXIT issue. 

British Democracy is NOW OFFICIALLY DEAD in the eyes of the populace of this great country. 

Our political system has been exposed warts and all for what it is.  Westminster is now seen largely as a CABAL of self-serving politicians who are hell bent on doing what is good for them and have little regard for the WILL of the people. Also, that in doing so, they will be surrendering the SOVEREIGNTY of this great country to an un-elected cabal in the European Union.

THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE ABOUT BREXIT IS THE LOSS OF OUR SOVEREIGNTY!

Now is the time to bring in NEW Political Parties, with NEW ideas and a NEW Political system that is steeped in Integrity, Accountability and Probity and is geared to doing what is right for the Country, the People and society.  The Constitution below is a DRAFT constitution taken from a book that was being written and has been shared now to allow the new political system to foster in a new generation of honest, decent patriotic politicians.

The existing politicians will NOT like this Constitution because it puts their feet to the fire and holds them accountable.... so that is a very good reason why it should be adopted by the masses and new political parties.

The following "Constitution" is an extract from a futuristic Science Fiction novel that deals with issues such as political corruption, over population, climate change and depletion of earths resources in the future.  

Sounds somewhat familiar doesn't it? 

Just image the following was an extract from a manuscript from the future where they had experienced a world suffering from over population, hunger, corruption and massive conflict; they had the benefit of HINDSIGHT because they were able to look back at this decade.  Do you think they would have some ideas that may help us to learn some lessons about going forward and what a prudent constitution should look like for new democracies and political parties.

INDEX of TOPICS

1         Guaranteed personal identification:
2         One person, one vote:
3         Mandatory voting:
4         Sustainable economic system:
5         Democracy should be based on Merit and Integrity:
6         Balance between the Left, Middle and Right:
7         Maintaining political and operational continuity:
8         To ensure democratic integrity:
9         Zero tolerance on crime and corruption:
10      Zero tolerance on arms sales:
11      Funding of political election campaigns:
12      Zero tolerance on Media Corruption:
13      The rights of the citizen:
14      Equal respect of all religious practices:
15      Fair taxation:
16      Education and Health:
17      Prevention of corporate or government corruption:
18     Immigration and Migration:

Positics Constitution.

1      Guaranteed personal identification: To ensure the individual’s ability to vote and ensure any vote count is not corrupted. Individual identity facilities need to guarantee absolute identification. (ie. Identification documents with Photo and Finger print, in addition they should implement Bio-metric security such as Iris recognition etc…. when that technology becomes available.)

2      One person, one vote: Democracy should be based on one person, one vote, irrespective of race, religion, creed or gender, and should be given to anyone older than eighteen years of age who can prove they are a citizen of that country;

a.    Voting eligibility: citizens would have to earn and qualify their right to vote by participating in a series of debates or online subject matter induction seminars financed by the government in concert with an independent political media channel, on a neutral basis articulating without bias the policies of the various parties. A citizen’s participation should earn them credits, which give them the merits required for their votes to be incorporated in either the lower or middle house or both house elections.

b.    There should be a simple but secure dual mechanical and electronic voting system and, when the technology becomes available, which included an internet electronic voting system that can qualify one’s ability to vote based on the merits earned for participation – essentially an integrated system to enable voters to qualify for the eligibility to vote. This would necessitate that proper security and identification was implemented to avoid identity fraud and corruption at the polling stations or web servers.

3      Mandatory voting: If the government is unable to institute a law that makes it mandatory to register and mandatory to vote in every election, then they need to consider the following;

a.     There should be a modification made to the older / legacy voting mechanisms. They need to introduce a hybrid of both the “first past the post” (FPtP) and the “alternative vote” (AV) systems so that a candidate or party has to secure more than 50% of the qualified votes to declare a victory.

b.     While both FPtP and AV systems individually have merits, both will be deemed flawed, unlike the combination of the two FPtP and AV, a hybrid enforces only qualified choices to be selected by the voter and is not a flawed vote collection mechanism. The FPtP–AV Hybrid, called the ‘Positics voting system’, enables a voter to have their vote whilst rating the next four alternative candidates, where a score of 5 is inserted against their first choice, a score of 4 inserted against their second choice, a score of 3 inserted against their third choice and so on. This is a more balanced mechanism that reflects the voters' selection by weighting/rating their choices, which when toted against the whole electorate the true choices for first and second place with weightings can be taken into account.

c.     This hybrid solution suits both the FPtP and AV mechanisms and does not force anyone to have to choose a third rate candidate if they do not want to.

4      Sustainable economic system: So that democracy can be fair and equitable to all quarters of society, the government must foster a sustainable and viable economic system in the private sector, independent of the government, which needs to be maintained in that country;

a.    The government should reduce red tape / bureaucracy for small businesses, making it easier for them to operate and employ staff;

b.    Tax incentives should be given to new start-up businesses for the first three years while they establish themselves;

c.    Banks should be incentivised to lend to these start-up businesses, backed by government guarantees so that innovation and entrepreneurial potential can be fully realised;

d.    A 5% portion of the profits from larger corporations should be pooled into a national business and skills education / apprenticeship fund that should be independently managed as a trust on behalf of the government. These funds should also be used for both new innovation grants and small business loans to ensure taking UK ingenuity to market is successful.

5      Democracy should be based on Merit and Integrity: The political system should be based on a system of qualification and merit not birthright, wealth or class status. This would mean that people who were eligible for seats in government had to be properly qualified and able to do the job competently.

a.    These roles should be properly paid for, and Member of Parliament (MP) salaries should be commensurate with the private sector for an equivalent role or job in the industry:

b.    To ensure security in employment it would be prudent to pay MPs a full-time salary of not less than;

                                          i.    Annual salary of  $120,000 per annum, including pension and healthcare for an elected MP,

                                        ii.    Annual salary of  $140,000 per annum, including pension and healthcare for an elected MP who has a cabinet seat,

                                       iii.    Annual salary of  $160,000 per annum, including pension and healthcare for an elected MP who is the Deputy Prime Minister or Vice President,

                                       iv.    Annual salary of  $180,000 per annum, including pension and healthcare for an elected MP who is the Prime Minister or President.

c.    To further foster an air of unequivocal trust, there would have to be dedicated MP roles, where an MP can only be employed full-time as an MP whilst in their role as an elected member of parliament; this will help to ensure to ensure complete transparency with all payments, expenses, favours/gifts and prevent paid assignments, industry directorships or associations and monies given to the politicians for favours.

d.    Corruption in politics should not be tolerated and long jail terms in a hard labour prison should be the mandatory sentence for politicians or dictators who abuse their positions of power.

e.    Governments should prevent the onerous situation of becoming bloated and overly cumbersome ‘Big Government’ and should be subject to private commercial entities bidding to undertake the same functions of service on a contractual basis to ensure a competitive market rate is paid for the service. This means that;

                                          i.    No political party in power shall create Government jobs for sake of removing Citizens off the unemployment register to obfuscate their poor handling of the economy.

                                        ii.    No ‘quasi’ Government organisations or departments can be setup to employ people for nefarious undertakings as a means of creating employment or unnecessary bureaucracy.

                                       iii.    Governments should always look firstly to small enterprise local in country owned organisations / corporations to fulfil government contracts before looking to large enterprise and should at no point in time have more than 50% of any contracts for government work handed to large corporations.

                                       iv.    Further to point 5.e.iii above, Governments should at no point in time have more than 15% of any contracts for government work handed to or sub-contracted to foreign corporations.

f.     To prevent the globalisation failures experienced in the 21st century, no Government contracts should be given in their entirety to to non domestic companies or corporations, especially where the majority share in any corporation in held by foreign investors.

6      Balance between the Left, Middle and Right: All political systems in each country should have at least three parties as a minimum. If a new party wants to be recognised, they would need to acquire a minimum of 100.000 supporters in that country to sign up to their party, thus enabling them to register as an official political Party and become a recognised and funded part of the political system.

a.    A public forum should be implemented that allows the voting public to critique existing political Parties and help pave the way for the introduction of new parties into the fold; this mechanism should be run every two years, midway between national elections.

b.    No election funding should be allocated to a Party unless they are certified.

7      Maintaining political and operational continuity: So that both continuity and consistency can be maintained in a balanced and fair way, each political system should have a three-tiered political system with the following structure;

a.    The Top House (i.e., House of Lords or Senate) that would own the country’s 100 year plan and deal with matters of strategic and global importance, such as national security, oversight of the law of the land, integrity of the nation, and integrity of the political system. This house would be the custodian of the country’s strategy, business plan and mission. These should be voted in positions by way of elections.

b.    The Middle House (i.e., Parliament or Congress) would own and have to deliver on the ten-year and twenty-five-year plan, which would cover items of national importance such as the policies on national health, social welfare, Ministry of Defence, national transport, national infrastructure, crime and policing, and defining the law of the land. This house could not in isolation make a radical change on a national basis that would impair the integrity of the nation, which is overseen by the Top House. This is where items that are of national significance would be decided on and delegated to the lower house for implementation. In addition the middle-house will have specific powers, including the power to establish and maintain an army and navy, to establish post offices, national water, energy and transport services, to create courts, to regulate commerce between counties or states, to declare war, and to raise money. These should be voted in positions by way of elections.

c.    The Lower House would own local government in County, District or Town Councils in the areas where people actually lived. This is the house where things would be implemented at a local level on a five-year and ten-year plan. These should be voted in positions by way of elections.

d.    The houses described above, (i.e. Parliament, or Congress, or Senate or House of Lords) must have a minimum number of members present in order to meet, they should meet no less than five times per month, and penalties/fines must be levied on members who do not show up more than twice in a row. Also, members may be expelled for persistent non compliance or dereliction of duties, and that each house must keep a journal to record proceedings and votes, and that neither house can create new holidays and adjourn without the permission of the other houses.

8      To ensure democratic integrity: Integrity must be engineered into and qualified throughout the process so that there can be no career politicians, cronyism, political dynasties or any form of political corruption; there should be severe penalties for any politicians found to be corrupt and there should be limits on duration served by any person of any political party or legislative house. So, for each of the following:

a.    Heads of State: There should be a maximum of two terms of four/five years for any leader, Prime Minister, President (eight/ten years in total);

                                          i.    The Head of State should be over the age of 40 years minimum to be electable for office,

                                        ii.    The Head of State must also be a natural-born citizen of the country.

                                       iii.    The Head of State should be paid a salary larger than those paid to elected politicians, which cannot change, up or down, as long as he or she is in office unless authorised by the Middle House.

                                       iv.    The Head of State can make treaties with other nations, and nominate many of the judges and other members of the government (all with the approval of the Top and Middle-Houses);

b.    The Top House (ie. House of Lords or Senate): There should be a maximum of three terms of four/five years for Lords or Senators (twelve/fifteen years in total); a Lord or Senator should not be able to enter the Top House unless they have served a minimum of two terms in either of the two lower houses. There should be NO hereditary positions, or ‘gifting’ of a seat for favours rendered, or by good fortune of birth into a royal, gentrified or wealthy family. The minimum age to enter this house should be 45 years old;

c.    The Middle House (ie. House of Parliament/Commons or Congress): There should be a maximum of three terms of four/five years for politicians (a total of twelve/fifteen years); The minimum age to enter this house should be 30 years old;

d.    The Lower House (ie. County or Town Councils): There should be a maximum of three terms of four/five years for politicians (twelve/fifteen years in total). The minimum age to enter this house should be 25 years old;

e.    Compensation and Remuneration for members of each of the respective Houses, should be administered independently and their packages should be set by an independent body that has people from the following four sectors in society on the remuneration board;

                                          i.    Government (one person from four sectors);

                                        ii.    Private Commercial sectors (One person from six sectors);

                                       iii.    Politicians (two persons from each house);

                                       iv.    Members of the Public (sixteen persons from various walks of life).

9      Zero tolerance on crime and corruption: The Middle House in each system should implement policies that would dictate the following for all walks of society, including those in the political houses.

a.    So that victims of crime are not unduly stressed, there will need to be a policy and law instantiated that forfeits a criminal’s human rights if he or she commits a crime that is of any grievous nature against another person. The perpetrator of said crime should be aware that in committing this crime they will forfeit their human rights as soon as they begin to commit the crime.

b.    Habitual criminality should be deterred by the implementation of a ‘three (3) strikes and you are out’ policy, where criminals who are convicted three times for serious crimes they have committed, they are sent to prison for a life of hard labour and servitude in a penal system that is geared to manufacture goods that serves the community or populace.

c.    Convicted criminals in prison should lose their ability to vote while they are incarcerated.

d.    All prisons would have to create a regime of working to pay for their living and for those who resist, there should be hard labour, with no prisoner lazing about watching TV, eating three square meals a day, as it was under the liberalised progressive world of the old.

10   Zero tolerance on arms sales: The Top House of each country would have to work with other countries to ensure that the sales of arms and artefacts of warfare will be outlawed across the globe. Any nation caught selling arms to other nations, especially chemical weapons will be fined billions and be subject to sanctions from the rest of the global community, and ALL Ministers overseeing this industry when the law is transgressed, should be incarcerated for a minimum of ten years hard labour. No exceptions!

11   Funding of political election campaigns: All national elections would be funded out of a central government administered “Political Fund”, created from the taxpayer’s pool; no additional funds should be raised or spent by the political Parties or individuals on any campaign. It is essential that elections should not be about the size of campaign funding or celebrity status or popularity. This central funding mechanism will ensure that people at the poorer end of society will have a shot at goal, especially if they are eligible by merit and their education qualifications:

a.    The Media should offer balanced and objective material when they make commentary for respective candidates or political Parties standing for elections;

                                          i.    This can be achieved by offering equal column space / airtime and position for any editorial to each of the Parties during the election phase or contest period.

                                        ii.     Failure to do so should result in heavy fines totally up to ten times their sales for that month.

                                       iii.    Advertorial or adverts paid for by the fund should be equal in cost per centimetre of copy or number of seconds/minutes of airtime for all Parties or candidates;

b.    Breaches of this protocol should be severely dealt with by imprisoning offenders throughput the chain of command within the Media organisation and severe fines should be imposed, which are paid into the Political Fund.

c.    To avoid cronyism and/or buying favours for votes, any funds submitted / donated by corporations or lobbying groups will be added to the central pool and distributed equally amongst all the participating certified parties.

d.    Generous Tax incentives should be given to these donating organisations.

12   Zero tolerance on Media Corruption: Each country’s media policy should be implemented governing all channels (all internet media & channels, newspapers, magazines, TV/radio channels and any form of advertisement / advertorial media etc.) so that a media organisation can no longer have a single political bias. This should not be implemented as a curbing of freedom of speech, but a way to ensure that mankind does not have its politics corrupted by the ‘Uber-rich’ or Progressive ‘do-gooders’ who might happen to own these Media corporations.

a.    The press/media have to be objective and neutral, for example they should be left-wing or right-wing agnostic. 

                                          i.    Controls have to be implemented to ensure this is correctly administered; they have to employ an equal number of journalists from the left, middle and right side of the political divide.

                                        ii.    Funding for editorial initiatives or Programs should be equally spread so that each segment has parity between them.

b.    During an election period, the Media should print the equivalent wordage/space per party – that is, If they write up a three-page article on a subject dear to the socialist or ‘left’ end of the scale, they have to do likewise for subjects dear to the middle and the conservative ‘right’ end of the spectrum. In other words, the articles should have at least three participants debating the pros and cons of the topic.

c.    Neutrality should be measured and monitored, especially during an election period, the Media should remain objective and Party agnostic by law, whenever there is a debate or commentary on a political subject, the Media should have to field at least three commentators, one each from the left, middle and right side of the political divide as an absolute minimum, or if there are more than three parties, one per party should be represented.

d.    The media should not offer their considered opinion, it should report the facts or views of those being interviewed. Failure by media groups to be fair and balanced in their commentary should result in heavy punitive fines and closure of their business after the third transgression, with jail sentences for all the owners and managers of the media organisation.

e.    Punitive damages for misbehaviour of the press: large fines should be imposed on any media company that disparages people and trashes their lives in the press for sensationalism, only to find that they were after all innocent.

                                          i.    In addition to large fines and punitive damages being paid to the ‘victim’ of their slime campaign, in these cases (there were too many annually to cite examples),

                                        ii.    the exact amount of wordage and exposure that was expended in their disparaging exposé against the individual needs to be used in rehabilitating the victim’s reputation by the same media entities and with as high a profile and priority that they used in their sensationalising denigrating reports.

f.     In reference to ‘Fake-News’, which has become a scourge used by the Media in their attempts to oust their foes, any Media corporation that is found Publishing or spreading what is discovered to be fake news, there will be a fine of 5% of 1/12th of their annual gross takings for each article found to be fake news.

13    The rights of the citizen: All citizens should be equal in the eyes of the government and the laws of the country, irrespective of religion, race, gender or sexual-orientation:

a.    All citizens should have the right to express freedom of speech and the right to protest in a peaceful non-violent manner as part of organised protests, without the fear of being intimidated or abused by officials of the state or government or their actors.

b.    No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, or equal protection of the laws if within the jurisdiction of any country.

c.    All citizens should have basic human rights, which can only be forfeited if they commit any grievous crime against another person or sentient being.

d.    Due to the over population of the planet and the ravaging / depletion of earth's resources, all citizens should still have the right to have children if they can afford to bring them up and care appropriately for those children.

                                          i.                No longer should there be Government sponsored population growth for the sake of maintaining and creating taxable headcount where Governments have historically demanded citizens have large families to ensure the growing population equates to growth of their economies, and

                                        ii.               There shall no longer be an expectation that the state should by default shell out welfare or aid to bring up their children unless they subsequently fall upon hard times or disability or mental impairment preventing the parents from working.

e.    All citizens should have the right to privacy and the government or media shall be prohibited from publishing confidential material or personal data that are known to be private.

f.     All citizens should have the right to security and should be able to rely on the state / government to implement and run a tough but fair judicial system that would ensure they are not victims of crime both in the physical world and cyber world.

g.    No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;

                                          i.    nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb (Double jeopardy);

                                        ii.    nor shall any person be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself or the spouse thereof be forced to be a witness against their spouse;

h.    All citizens shall be protected from all aspects of the Government, (including entities such as Police, Secret Service, Military, Customs and Excise, Inland Revenue and Home Guard) improperly taking property, papers, or people, without a valid warrant based on probable cause (good reason), unless subject to forfeiture.

i.      The Government guarantees that all citizens;

                                          i.    will have a speedy trial, an impartial jury, that the accused can confront witnesses against them in court, and that the accused must be allowed to have a lawyer.

                                        ii.    may have other rights aside from those listed that may exist, and just because they are not listed doesn't mean they can be violated, with exception of those which are subject to forfeit because of a grievous crime against another being.

j.      All citizens shall be protected by the government from slavery, servitude and forced labour, with exception where labour is;

                                          i.    done as a normal part of legal imprisonment as part of a tariff for crimes found guilty of,

                                        ii.     in the form of compulsory military service or work done as an alternative by conscientious objectors,

                                       iii.     required to be done during a state of emergency, and

                                       iv.     considered to be a part of a person's normal "civic obligations" such as jury service.

k.    All citizens shall be protected by the government from the retrospective criminalisation of acts and omissions.  No person may be retrospectively punished for an act that was not a criminal offence at the time of its commission;

                                          i.    Includes where a criminal offence is one under either national or international law, which would permit a party to prosecute someone for a crime which was not illegal under their domestic law at the time it was commissioned, so long as it was not prohibited by international law at the time.

                                        ii.    Also prohibits a heavier penalty being imposed later in time than was applicable at the time when the criminal act was committed.

l.      All citizens shall have the right to protect by whatever force or means necessary;

                                          i.    their property, both themselves their families and their pets if their house is entered into or invaded by a person or persons illegally without a warrant or not attended by the law who announce and evidence themselves prior to gaining permission to enter.

                                        ii.    In the event of an illegal invasion, the householder should not be fearful of prosecution as this would be deemed self defence and the perpetrator would knowingly forfeit all their human rights in committing the crime.

14   Equal respect of all religious practices: All citizens should have the right to practise any religion and the governments of the respective countries will ensure this freedom is respected and citizens are not persecuted because of their beliefs.

a.    Separation of religion and government: These two should remain separate, and no country shall be governed by a religious body, as this has proven to be a recipe for immediate discrimination;

b.    All governments must foster an environment of religious tolerance by having a mandatory minimum of one to two hours a week religious education across all faiths on an equal basis in all of the schools within that country. This includes appropriate lessons for agnostics and atheists.

15   Fair taxation: The governments shall implement a fair taxation regime:

a.    By taxing those who prospered in such a way that is deemed fair and equitable;

b.    By making the initial threshold for personal taxation totally tax free to protect the frail/disabled and poor from taxation, for example the first $12,000 annual earnings per individual should be tax free;

c.    To further support the poor, or lower salary earners in society, the governments should seek to introduce a taxation stairway that taxes earnings between thresholds. For example, a possible system could be tiered in a graduated scale structure as follows:

                                          i.    Between $1 and $20,000 at 0% (Zero Tax)

                                        ii.    Between $20,001 and $50,000 at W%

                                       iii.    Between $50,001 and $100,000 at X%

                                       iv.    Between $100, 001 and $250,000 at Y%

                                        v.    Any income of $250,001 and above at Z%

d.    The governments should seek to introduce incentives for those more fortunate and wealthy in society to receive tax rebates, based on their investment back into society, whereby businesses can create work and entrepreneurial prosperity for all citizens, all of which would result in creating a viable and sustainable economy based on capitalism with corruption mitigation protocols.

e.    Corporations should be taxed on an in country basis, which means that global organisations should not be able to repatriate their profits to offshore tax havens, or head-office jurisdictions until after the in country taxes have been calculated and deducted. 

                                          i.    This should be put into law and back taxes for the previous decade should be calculated and recovered,

                                        ii.    A hefty fine should be imposed on both the corporation and the Board members of those corporations that are caught cheating the tax system.

f.     Laws should be introduced that enforces integrity in taxation advice, especially where Accountants or Financial Consultants have offered advice to individuals, corporations or organisations that turns out to be a tax cheating mechanism,

                                          i.    the accounts should be forced to pay back all fees plus interest to their clients and

                                        ii.    those Accounting organisations should be fined 200% of those charges, which should be paid to the Tax Office,

                                       iii.    Directors, Chief Executive Officers and Chairman of that organisation should also be punished to the full extent of the law.

16   Education and Health: Both education and health should be primary concerns of all governments and it should be written into law that citizens have access to both services especially if they are too poor (ie. unemployed or earning less than $25,000 per annum) to pay for these services.

a.    Also, it should be made into law that a system offering private healthcare should be allowed to run in parallel with any government system, such as the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom or the equivalent in any other country.

b.    Private healthcare and the government version of healthcare should be in competition with each other to ensure price competitiveness.

c.    For those people or corporations who acquire private healthcare, they should receive a tax rebate of at least 50% percentage of what they contribute towards the government healthcare program in compensation for using a non-government facility for the duration that they take on private healthcare.

17   Prevention of Corporate or Government corruption: It should be put into law that if a Bank, Corporation or any Government department, including Politicians, the Police or Army or a Charity, commit any crime of fraud that steals or defrauds money from citizens for their own benefit, not only should the culprits who perpetrated the crime be punished, so should the Directors, Chief Executive Officers and Chairman of that organisation be punished to the full extent of the law with penalties that include both incarceration with hard labour along with very hefty fines.

18   Immigration and Migration:  In recognition of those people who are prepared to work for a living, are not undertaking criminal activities and do not choose to live off welfare and receive benefits from their hosting country, all countries should look to all implement equal immigration laws that should be put into law that stipulate the same terms and conditions of how one becomes a legal immigrant if they choose to move to another country, what social services they can or cannot expect in the first four or five years of their arrival, and what contributions over what period need to be made into the system before being able to apply for social services,

a.    This includes the introduction of strict border controls for both people and goods including animals of any type;

b.    All immigration solutions should employ a points based system, where merit, qualifications and criminal free records are key considerations of acceptance.

c.    In those unfortunate cases where immigrants abuse the laws of the host country and where they are found guilty of crimes committing within the Naturalisation  Visa period, those individuals will be repatriated / deported to their home country or last country where they had legal status.