Lawmakers have a responsibility to re-evaluate old laws and
create new laws that will serve the people.
This ranges from constitutional law all the way to regional laws. Therefore, it is advantageous for this ministry
to have a federal department and several regional departments spread out
logically where they are needed down to the municipal level. I think this could work in a similar way as
today’s city or county by-laws. At the
local level, these super-regional by-laws are important to satisfy the needs
and desires of residents of very specific areas based on their location,
demography, affluence, infrastructure, industry and so on. Needed regulation can be quite different in a
large metropolitan city versus a small farming community.
Of utmost importance to start with, our ideal society needs
a modern constitution that ensures the basic needs we’ve identified in the
first section of this book are distributed fairly and without bias to all
citizens. This is the primary purpose of
the government after all. Thus, the
basic needs should be stated as basic rights under the constitution. Since these basic needs are biological
rights, those should be immutable though they could be amended under special
circumstances. Other less basic
additions should be made to this constitution.
I would recommend including an updated version of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)[1]
and the right for each citizen to have basic internet access. Remember, if we’re going to be a
technologically advanced civilization with an engaged citizenry, we must ensure
every citizen has what is needed to be connected with the rest of the nation
and the government as well. On a higher level,
civil and criminal code legislation should be addressed in bigger regions
(states, provinces etc.). On a national
level, the legislature should be more constitutional or of national impact such
as income tax law, legal agreements between countries, and so forth.
One of the bigger differences we’d see between the ideal
system we’re thinking about here and the real world is that there would be no
parties involved in the ministry in the same way that there are no parties
involved in the selection of ministry leadership. In the past, parties were born out of the idea
of siding with an ideology, thus a group of similarly minded people, for
strength of opinion. Our new electoral
system doesn’t need nor require political parties. It doesn’t mean that people inside a ministry
wouldn’t agree and disagree on different topics. Neither would the engaged population be
polarized or get organized in groups at times.
Groupings are inevitable, and people should be free to do so.
It would be the job of this ministry, aided by the AI
analysis to determine what event, cause, problem should be prioritized for the
people, and to find the optimal legislative solution that would satisfy the
people. Once a solution is presented to
the population through the online system, and given time for reflection by the
collaboration between the people and ministry staff/AI, the new proposed law,
by-law or amendment could be modified, dumped or put to execution by the
ministry.
Online consensus would automatically be calculated by the
analytics AI in favor of the new bill “as is” or if it needs more work. This concept replaces and, in many ways,
simulates the very valid and tried true adversarial approach to discussions in
modern politics. The arguments are just
held with the people and the educated experts participating in governance
within. Contrary to our old system, the
people represent themselves and have no need to join groupings like parties to
be heard. Hopefully, this would mean millions
of “parties of one” adding their voices to the process and affecting real
change one comment at a time.
Other ministries as
participants
Since law is central to much of what we do and used as a
general guide by individuals and companies alike, other ministries will need to
be consulted on different issues to ensure the Lawmaking Ministry has all the
facts from the best experts in the world.
So, it is logical, for example, the Health Ministry would be heavily
consulted, as well as the health experts within the population through the
system (nurses, doctors, health industry entrepreneurs and workers etc.), to
ensure a law affecting availability of medicine is properly drafted and worded to
benefit everyone’s health. In this example,
since possible health cost increases may be a burden, the Economy & Trade
Ministry will need to be involved along with their citizen-experts from the
population (economists, merchants, environmentalists, blockchain experts, trade
platform providers, ecommerce merchants, economy bloggers, etc.) Making a new law that will affect a lot of
people needs to come from positions of solid fact and in agreement with the
majority of knowledgeable population.
Applying a new
law/amendment
No matter what a new law is, and the level of government, it
needs to be passed along to the other ministries so that they can adapt to new
rules and affect changes in their own operations accordingly. For instance, a new law that restricts who
can acquire a weapon at the federal level has to be passed along to the
Security Ministry and to the Ministry of Justice. These ministries can then immediately enforce
the law on the streets and in the courts.
This one doesn’t impact the other ministries directly, but they would
become aware of it along with the people (we can make communications with the
government a choice of medium: e-mail newsletter, tweet, Facebook post, snail
mail… why not?). Whatever the means
citizens prefer to stay in touch with their employee’s work, it should be
available.
If a law impacts other countries, then the Foreign Affairs
Ministry would need to be involved in communications and negotiations.
If it affects only a small domestic region, then the
information would be disseminated through that population only directly yet still
be available in the central system for anyone would like to check it out from
anywhere in the country.
A population that is well informed about new legislature will
help future law-making efforts and the population would be further engaged in
new law and amendments. It is also an
encouraging process for businesses who would like to move forward with projects
with new laws in full view, and thus avoid issues of crossing lines
unintentionally. On the other hand, innovative businesses with
strong support could be active participants in the creation and live testing of
new regulations in full view of the whole population.
Ignorance of the law with this much information and indeed
discussion between individuals and the media would even more ridiculous than
what it is today and definitely not an excuse for breaking it.
[1]
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
United Nations - http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
