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Foundations Of The Republic

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1

Nature of the Republic

The Republic is a participatory democracy, socially owned, and bound to keep the land liveable.

  1. 1.The Republic of Fluid is a sovereign republic, constituted as a participatory democracy, founded on the rule of law, on the social ownership of the means of production, and on the permanent obligation to sustain the ecological conditions of life.
  2. 2.Its legal order is unitary. Its communes and regions govern themselves under Title VII.
  3. 3.The republican form of government is perpetual.
2

Human dignity

Human dignity cannot be violated by anyone, for any reason.

  1. 1.Human dignity is inviolable. All public authority is bound to respect and protect it.
  2. 2.In no case does an emergency, an economic plan, a majority or an international obligation authorise its violation.
3

Sovereignty of the people

Power belongs to the people and may be used only through the routes set out here.

  1. 1.Sovereignty belongs to the people of the Republic and is exercised only through the institutions and procedures established by this Constitution.
  2. 2.The people exercise sovereignty directly through communal assembly, popular initiative and referendum; through bodies drawn by lot; through the workplace, user and neighbourhood assemblies of Titles IV and VII; and through elected representatives and mandated delegates. Participation extends to those who work in an undertaking, use a service, inhabit a territory or bear an ecological burden, in the decisions that affect them. In no case is participation reduced to the periodic election of representatives.
  3. 3.Whoever assumes public power outside the procedures of this Constitution commits usurpation. Prosecution of usurpation is subject to no limitation of time, and no obedience is owed to its author.
4

Supremacy and direct effect

This Constitution outranks every other rule, and anything conflicting with it is void.

  1. 1.This Constitution is the supreme law of the Republic.
  2. 2.It binds the legislature, the executive committees and the administration, the courts, the communes, the regions, the planning bodies, the cooperatives and every holder of delegated public function.
  3. 3.The rights guaranteed in Title III have direct effect and may be invoked before any court without implementing legislation.
  4. 4.A norm, act, plan or decision that conflicts with this Constitution is void to the extent of the conflict.
5

Ecological foundation

The Republic must live within what nature can renew, and repair what it damages.

  1. 1.The Republic exists within a finite biosphere. Maintenance of its regenerative capacity conditions the validity of all economic planning.
  2. 2.Public authorities, communes, regions and economic organisations conduct their activity within the ecological budgets established under Title II.
  3. 3.Ecological harm is prevented at source. Where prevention fails, restoration is owed to the affected system and to the persons and communities injured.
  4. 4.Scientific uncertainty about the extent of an ecological harm justifies protective measures and furnishes no ground for deferring them.
  5. 5.The natural heritage is held in trust for succeeding generations. Depletion transferred to the future is accounted as a present cost.
6

Social ownership

Workplaces and productive property are owned socially, and owning things earns nobody an income.

  1. 1.The means of production are held in social ownership.
  2. 2.Social ownership takes four forms: the commons, held by the whole people and inalienable; cooperative usufruct, held by the working members of an enterprise for the duration of their work in it; communal and regional enterprise; and public establishments serving universal needs.
  3. 3.Holding a productive asset confers no right to income from it. Income arising from the bare holding of productive assets is abolished.
  4. 4.Capital markets, tradable claims on productive assets, rent extracted from land, enterprises operating for profit, and the employment of persons for the appropriation of their surplus labour are prohibited.
  5. 5.Personal property is guaranteed under Title III.
7

Coordination of the economy

The economy is planned in real quantities to meet registered needs, and money as capital is abolished.

  1. 1.The economy is planned for the satisfaction of declared and assessed human needs within the ecological budgets of Title II.
  2. 2.Planning proceeds by physical accounting. Energy, materials, water, land, emissions, labour time and the useful life of goods are the primary units of the plan.
  3. 3.Essential goods and services, enumerated in Title IV, are provided free at the point of use and allocated according to registered need.
  4. 4.Every resident holds the right to register their needs and the duty to register them truthfully. Aggregated need declarations are a binding input to the plan and are published in anonymised form.
  5. 5.Currency understood as a store of value, an instrument of accumulation or a claim upon the labour of others is abolished. Where a unit of account remains necessary for goods outside the essential provision, that unit is personal, non-transferable, non-accumulable, expiring, and issued on equal terms under Title IV.
  6. 6.Cooperatives coordinate horizontally by negotiated agreement and vertically through the planning bodies of Title IV. Each enterprise operates under a binding resource ceiling and bears the consequences of its own performance.
  7. 7.Sufficiency, durability, repair, reuse and the return of materials to productive use are objectives of the plan and criteria of its lawfulness.
8

Territory

The territory is indivisible and cannot be sold, leased, or host a foreign base.

  1. 1.The territory comprises the land, inland waters, territorial sea, airspace, subsoil and adjacent seabed of the Republic.
  2. 2.The territory is indivisible. In no case may a portion of it be alienated, ceded, leased to the exclusive use of a foreign power, or made the site of a foreign military installation.
  3. 3.Division of the territory into communes and regions is governed by Title VII.
9

Common heritage

Land, water, air, minerals and the genetic heritage belong to everyone and cannot be sold.

  1. 1.Land, watercourses, watersheds, aquifers, forests, wetlands, coastlines, the seabed, the atmosphere, mineral deposits, the electromagnetic spectrum and the genetic heritage of the territory constitute the common heritage of the people.
  2. 2.The common heritage is inalienable, unseizable and imprescriptible. Its use is granted as revocable usufruct on the conditions set in Titles II and IV.
10

Knowledge commons

Knowledge made with public resources is free for all to use, and patents are prohibited.

  1. 1.Scientific knowledge, software, technical designs, seed varieties, pharmaceutical formulations and cultural works produced with public resources belong to the knowledge commons and are open to all persons on equal terms.
  2. 2.Exclusive rights over the use of knowledge, including patents, are prohibited within the Republic.
  3. 3.Authorship is protected by attribution and by the moral rights defined in Title III.
11

Secularity

The state has no religion, and neither funds nor hinders any belief.

  1. 1.The Republic is secular. Public authority adopts no religion or worldview, funds none, hinders the practice of none and privileges the practice of none.
  2. 2.No public office carries a religious qualification.
  3. 3.Public education transmits verified knowledge and the methods by which knowledge is tested.
12

Political pluralism

Parties are free, and only a court may restrict one, only for acts it has proved.

  1. 1.Political pluralism is guaranteed and constitutes a condition of the legitimacy of public power.
  2. 2.Parties, trade unions, cooperative federations and civic associations form freely, govern themselves democratically, and publish their statutes, membership rules and accounts.
  3. 3.A political association may be restricted or dissolved only by judgment of the Constitutional Court, upon proof that it pursues by force or by fraud the abolition of democratic self-government, of social ownership, or of the equal dignity of persons. The judgment specifies the acts proved and the measure proportionate to them.
  4. 4.In no case may an administrative authority classify a political association by its ideology, and no electoral consequence attaches to such classification.
13

Distribution and accountability of powers

Law and execution sit together in the Assembly, while courts, planners and watchdogs stay separate.

  1. 1.The judicial, planning and oversight functions are exercised by bodies distinct from the Assembly and from one another. The legislative and executive functions are united in the Assembly, which legislates in plenary sitting and executes through the committees constituted under Title VI.
  2. 2.In no case may a body exercise a power that this Constitution confers on another. The union of functions under paragraph 1 is controlled by the courts, by the organs of planning, by the offices of Title IX, and by the residents through the recall of Article 128 and the referendum of Article 140.
  3. 3.Every holder of public office is accountable for its exercise, removable by the procedures of this Constitution, and personally liable for damage caused by unlawful acts.
  4. 4.Terms of office are limited in duration. Accumulation of offices is restricted under Title IX.
14

Legality, publicity and non-retroactivity

Officials act only under law, secret law has no effect, and decisions must give reasons.

  1. 1.Public authority acts on the basis of law, within its limits, and for the purpose for which the power was conferred.
  2. 2.A legal norm binds only after publication in the public register. Secret law produces no effect.
  3. 3.Retroactive application of a norm creating or aggravating liability is prohibited. A more favourable penal law applies retroactively.
  4. 4.Administrative and planning decisions state their reasons in writing and are open to challenge before an independent body.
15

Reception of international law

Ratified treaties become law here, but can never cut rights or the ecological limits.

  1. 1.Treaties ratified under Title XI form part of the law of the Republic and prevail over ordinary statute.
  2. 2.Peremptory norms of general international law bind the Republic at all times.
  3. 3.In no case may a treaty diminish the rights guaranteed in Title III or the ecological budgets established under Title II. Where an international obligation conflicts with them, the Republic seeks its revision and applies the domestic standard in the interval.
16

Languages, symbols and seat

You may deal with the state in a language you understand, free of charge.

  1. 1.Every person may address public authority in a language they understand, with interpretation and translation provided free of charge. The languages of official record are determined by organic law.
  2. 2.The flag, emblem and public holidays of the Republic are established by organic law.
  3. 3.The seat of the institutions of the Republic is fixed by organic law.
17

Organic laws

Matters reserved to organic law need a reinforced majority and a prior court check.

  1. 1.Matters that this Constitution reserves to organic law are regulated by statute adopted under the reinforced procedure of Title V.
  2. 2.An organic law may develop the Constitution and may add nothing to it. Its conformity is verified by the Constitutional Court before promulgation.