Title 4 of the AIN Code

Title 4 of the AIN Code (abbreviated 4 A.I.N.C.) is the fourth official title of the Code of Laws of the Alliance of Independent Nations. It contains all current laws concerning the union's non-roleplay government and staff.

Section 1: The Webmaster
1. The Webmaster of the Union is defined as the member of the Alliance who has ownership of the union’s website, domain, and web hosting plan, and bears ultimate responsibility for the same.

2. The Webmaster shall be a permanent administrator with the following special privileges:
 * a. He shall be exempt from all requirements related to activity, so as to maintain his membership and administrative office as long as he remains the Webmaster.
 * b. He shall be a permanent member of the Committee of Trustees and of the Executive Council.
 * c. He shall have access to the site’s FTP backend and control panel, so as to permit him to perform any needed maintenance or repairs.
 * d. He shall have power to advise the Executive Council in its decisions, but not to vote on said decisions.

3. The Webmaster shall be tasked with the following special responsibilities:
 * a. He shall ensure that all of the site’s web hosting and domain name registration bills are paid in a timely manner, in pursuit of which he may, at his discretion, request voluntary donations from the other members of the union.
 * b. He shall perform maintenance and repairs on the website as necessary, including updating the forum and wiki software as new versions of each become available.
 * c. He shall refrain from running for, or holding, any elected executive office, unless such an office would otherwise remain vacant; and he shall not compel any other members to refrain from running for executive office, except for those members whom union law forbids from holding executive office.

4. If the Webmaster is unable to perform his duties, or if the union staff cannot contact him for a significant period of time when his services are needed, or if he resigns from his office, the Committee of Trustees shall vote to replace him with a new Webmaster. Their decision shall not take effect unless confirmed by a majority of voting members in the Senate.

5. Except under the circumstances given in the preceding paragraph, the Webmaster shall continue in his office indefinitely.

Section 2: Union Staff
1. There shall be a total of five (5) administrators: the Webmaster, the President of the Alliance, the Vice President of the Alliance, and two permanent administrators who shall be appointed by the President on the advice and consent of the rest of the Executive Council from among a pool of qualified applicants. All other administrators shall be subordinate to the President of the Alliance, who shall be the chief administrator.
 * a. The President may, at his discretion, hold a public vote to decide which applicant should become a new permanent administrator, in lieu of appointing a new permanent administrator. Such elections shall be treated as by-elections and conducted in accordance with 2 A.I.N.C. §5.
 * b. In the event that a permanent administrator is elected to the office of the President or Vice President of the Alliance, a temporary administrator shall be appointed, so that the total number of administrators serving at any one time shall remain five (5). If permanent administrators are elected to both offices, two (2) temporary administrators shall be appointed.
 * c. Any temporary administrators serving shall relinquish their offices after the end of the final term of the officer whose election made that administrator’s appointment necessary (e.g. if a permanent administrator is elected President and a temporary administrator is appointed after that election, the temporary administrator shall step down as administrator when that President ends his final term in office), or until that temporary administrator resigns, whichever comes first.
 * d. All temporary administrators shall be equal in rank and responsibilities to the permanent administrators, and they shall be appointed in the same manner as the permanent administrators, i.e. by application and approval by the Executive Council.

2. All administrators shall be responsible for the strategic development of the union website, including the forums and wiki, and for the everyday technical aspects of running the same, including (but not limited to): adding and removing forums as necessary, maintaining and updating the forums’ and wiki’s appearance, activating new user accounts, preventing spammers from registering, improving the site’s functionality, and implementing the Executive Council’s disciplinary rulings and sentences for violations of the site rules.

3. In addition to the administrators, there shall be a maximum of three (3) moderators, who shall assist the administrators in tasks specific to moderation of the forums, wiki and chatrooms. Said moderators shall be subordinate to the Vice President of the Alliance, who shall be the chief moderator.
 * a. All moderators shall have full moderation privileges over the forums, as well as only those administrative privileges which are necessary for the moderators to perform their duties.
 * b. All moderators shall be appointed by the Vice President on the advice and consent of the Executive Council from among a pool of qualified applicants.
 * c. In the event that a moderator is elected to an executive office or appointed to be a temporary administrator, no temporary moderator shall be appointed to replace him. However, if a moderator is appointed to be a permanent administrator, a new moderator shall be appointed to replace him, according to the procedure above.

4. The administrators and moderators shall collectively be termed the staff of the union. Any reference to “staff”, “union staff”, or any reasonable variation thereupon, shall be understood to implicitly include both administrators and moderators, to the exclusion of all others.

5. All administrators and moderators, whether temporary, permanent or ex officio, may be dismissed from their staff positions by the Executive Council in a public statement for violating the site rules, or for an unannounced period of inactivity (using the definition of inactivity given in 1 A.I.N.C. §2.2(a)).
 * a. Depending on the nature of an offense against the site rules as specified in 3 A.I.N.C. §4.3, staff members dismissed from their positions as a result of a rule violation may be disqualified from ever again serving on the union staff in any capacity, whether temporary, permanent or ex officio. The Executive Council shall specify whether such a disqualification applies to a dismissed staff member in its public announcement of said staff member’s dismissal.
 * b. The Webmaster shall not be dismissed for inactivity in his membership, as stated in clause 1.2(a).

6. All administrators and moderators, whether temporary, permanent, or ex officio, may be dismissed from their staff positions by a successful vote of no confidence brought against that staff member in the Senate by any union member who does not hold an executive office, or by a vote of the Committee of Trustees.
 * a. In such an event, the Executive Council shall appoint a replacement for the dismissed staff member no more than 21 days after the vote of no confidence has concluded.
 * b. Motions of no confidence against the Webmaster must name a successor to be valid.

7. The union staff may, at its sole discretion, and with the consent of a majority of its members, adopt such bylaws as it determines to be beneficial to the execution of its powers and duties.
 * a. The Executive Handbook shall contain all such bylaws for the information and instruction of the staff.
 * b. No bylaws may be adopted that contradict, violate, or render ineffective any part of this Act, or of any other law of the union.
 * c. No staff member shall be punished for failing to abide by a bylaw. If failure to abide by a bylaw results in or accompanies a failure to execute that staff member’s duties, or a violation of the union’s laws, the guilty staff member may only be punished for that failure or violation in accordance with 3 A.I.N.C.

Section 3: Executive Council
1. The Executive Council (whose members may also be referred to as “executives”) shall consist of the five (5) administrators and the Speaker of the Union. Its chairman shall be the President of the Alliance, and its vice-chairman shall be the Vice President of the Alliance.
 * a. The Webmaster’s position on the Executive Council shall be strictly advisory, with no voting powers.

2. The President shall be the chief administrator, and shall also:
 * a. lead the development of the forums;
 * b. fill vacancies in the Committee of Trustees by appointment and ensure that all Trustees can be contacted whenever necessary;
 * c. represent the union at events in a ceremonial capacity;
 * d. represent the union at other unions; and
 * e. consult other members on the strategic direction of the union, or on any issue which he shall deem important to the stability or long-term survival of the union, which may involve the formation of permanent or temporary committees dedicated to specific issues.

3. The Vice President shall be the chief moderator, and shall also:
 * a. convene and organize union events,
 * b. look after and ensure the well-being of all union members,
 * c. oversee the management of the Alliance Council and all its subdivisions (excluding the Union Congress and General Assembly), and
 * d. assist the President in any of his duties when the need arises.

4. Both the President and Vice President shall be ex officio administrators and be able to:
 * a. ban union members or other site users on the advice and consent of the Executive Council,
 * b. shut the union website down as needed for a specified period, and
 * c. address the union on such topics as they see fit.

5. The Speaker of the Union shall only hold administrative powers over the Senate, the Union Congress, and the General Assembly, and shall:
 * a. ensure the effective running of the Senate, the Union Congress, and the General Assembly;
 * b. encourage members to participate in debates on measures;
 * c. put measures to vote after sufficient debate on them has occurred and the bill’s author has requested a vote;
 * d. announce the results of voting on measures and whether they passed or failed;
 * e. move measures and laws to different subforums as appropriate;
 * f. keep the Index of Current Laws and the Archive Index up to date;
 * g. ensure that all members follow all active laws and report violations of the same to the Executive Council;
 * h. oversee the Union Congress and General Assembly in a strictly non-roleplay capacity; and
 * i. manage votes of no confidence against other staff members.

6. No temporary administrator shall be appointed if a permanent or temporary administrator becomes the Speaker, although such situations are discouraged. In such circumstances, the Speaker shall serve in both positions simultaneously.

7. In the event that the President resigns before the normal expiration of his term, the Vice President shall serve as acting President until a new President has been elected. Likewise, if the Vice President resigns before the normal expiration of his term, the Speaker of the Union shall serve as acting Vice President until a new Vice President has been elected.
 * a. If the President and the Vice President resign within seven (7) days of each other, the Committee of Trustees shall appoint two of its members to serve as acting President and Vice President; and they shall serve in said offices until by-elections for both offices have concluded.

8. Any member who has held membership in the union continuously for at least six (6) months prior to taking office, and who does not simultaneously hold membership in any other union, may run for any executive office, unless that member is disqualified under 1 A.I.N.C. §5.4(b). All members seeking executive office shall be elected under the terms of 2 A.I.N.C. §3, and shall serve terms no longer than six (6) months, as specified therein.

9. Members may serve on the Executive Council for a maximum of three (3) consecutive terms in the same office. There shall be no limit on the total number of terms served across positions.
 * a. If a member is elected to an executive office between general elections, the term during which he was elected shall not count toward the above limit.
 * b. Members may serve an unlimited number of terms in the same executive office, as long as no more than three (3) terms are consecutive in any period. At least one full, six-month term must pass before a member who has served three (3) consecutive terms in one office may serve in the same office again.

10. The Executive Council shall be disbanded after a successful vote of no confidence brought against it in the Senate by a union member, or if the Committee of Trustees votes to disband it.
 * a. In such an event, all executive officers shall be dismissed simultaneously, and a general election shall be held to replace them no more than 21 days after the vote of no confidence has concluded.

Section 4: Committee of Trustees
1. The Committee of Trustees shall have seven (7) members, the last five (5) of whom shall be appointed by invitation of the chair:
 * a. its chair, the President of the Alliance;
 * b. the Webmaster of the Union;
 * c. two (2) administrators, who shall represent the views of senior members and execute the Committee’s decisions;
 * d. two (2) honorary members in good standing, who shall represent the views of former leaders and provide a neutral and experienced point of view; and
 * e. one (1) other member in good standing, who shall represent the views of junior and new members, and shall be appointed by invitation of the chair after his election to the presidency.

2. Any Trustee may convene a meeting of the Committee at any time, and the Committee shall not meet at any other time.

3. The Committee shall be charged with leading the union during times of crisis, if the Executive Council is unable to do so due to having been disbanded as specified in section 3 of this Act, or if a conflict of interest prevents the Executive Council from functioning effectively as the union’s normal leadership.

4. The Committee shall also have power to do the following if a majority of Trustees vote in favor of doing so:
 * a. to oversee the union’s strategic aims;
 * b. to ban a forum user (other than the Webmaster) permanently;
 * c. to shut down the union for any period of time they deem necessary, including permanently;
 * d. to replace the Webmaster for any of the reasons given in §1.4 of this Act, if confirmed by a majority of voting members in the Senate;
 * e. to collect voluntary donations from the union members for the upkeep of the union website;
 * f. to hear appeals of disciplinary action taken by the Executive Council if the defendant requests an appeal, as specified in 3 A.I.N.C. §5.6;
 * g. to hear appeals of other administrative actions taken by the Executive Council if a staff member disagrees strongly with said actions; and
 * h. to disband the Executive Council if necessary.

5. The Committee shall conduct all of its meetings in a private subforum on the union website, and all of its case notes and resolutions shall remain there for no more than 365 days after the final post in a topic.
 * a. While the publication of closed cases as described above is a legal requirement, there shall be no punishment for failure to do so in a timely manner.

6. The Committee shall be disbanded for reelection after a successful vote of no confidence brought against it in the Senate by a union member who is not a Trustee.

Section 5: Senate
1. The Senate shall be the union’s legislative body for all bills, proposals, and motions (collectively “measures”) which cannot be made in character, or which affect strictly administrative or non-roleplay aspects of the union. The three different types of measures shall be defined as follows:
 * a. Bills are measures which have a permanent effect on the union as a whole, and which are added to the AIN Code when they are passed. Examples of bills include, but are not limited to: changes to the organizational structure of the union, new administrative regulations, changes to the union rules, and changes to membership requirements or levels within the union.
 * b. Proposals are measures which have a permanent effect, but which only apply to one member state or a subset of member states, or to one part of the union’s government. Examples of proposals include, but are not limited to: major retroactive changes to member states, changes to specific government ministries of the union, and proposals for new union events.
 * c. Motions are measures which have a temporary effect, and which may apply to either the whole union or a part thereof, including one or more specific members. Examples of motions include, but are not limited to: confirmations of the Committee of Trustees’ choice for a new Webmaster, and motions of no confidence against a staff member or government group, as specified elsewhere in this Act.
 * d. The above types of measures shall be subject to the same legislative standards and procedures, as described in this section and in 2 A.I.N.C. §1.

2. All members of the union shall have equal membership in the Senate, with one vote per member; and new members shall automatically gain membership in the Senate upon the passage of their applications.

3. No member shall be able to veto any measure under consideration by the Senate.

4. The Senate shall consist of a single chamber, due to its being composed of all of the union’s members, and its forums shall be divided as follows:
 * a. New measures shall be posted in the Senate Chamber, where members shall discuss them, propose changes to them, and argue their positions on them. Once measures have received at least ten (10) comments (excluding comments by their respective authors), there is a general consensus that no further changes to them are necessary, and their authors request that they be put to vote, they shall be put to vote in the same subforum, their topic prefix being updated accordingly, and shall remain there until voting on them has concluded.
 * b. Proposals and motions which have met the conditions for passage given in 2 A.I.N.C. §1.2 shall be moved to the Approved Proposals and Motions subforum.
 * c. Bills which have met the conditions for passage given in 2 A.I.N.C. §1.2 shall be moved to the Law Library subforum; their titles shall be edited to replace the word “Bill” with “Act”; and their titles shall be added to the Index of Current Laws, along with those portions of the AIN Code in which they have been codified.
 * d. Measures which have not met the aforementioned conditions for passage, and whose authors have abandoned them, shall be moved to the Failed Proposals subforum and locked.
 * e. Any act which has been repealed or superseded by a later act shall be moved from the Law Library to the Law Archives subforum (which shall be a subforum of the Law Library). Such an act shall be stricken from the Index of Current Laws, and shall be added to the Archive Index with a notation of which act repealed or superseded it.
 * f. Any proposal which solely affects a member state which is no longer in the union shall be moved from the Passed Proposals and Motions subforum to the Proposals Archive subforum and locked.

5. All measures passed by the Senate shall take effect immediately following their approval by an executive, unless they specify a different date of enactment within their text; and no measure shall have retroactive effect on any member, or on the union as a whole, except for retroactive changes to member states.

6. Members may bring motions of no confidence against a staff member, the Executive Council as a whole, or the Committee of Trustees, subject to the restrictions given in the preceding sections.
 * a. Such motions shall be posted in the Senate Chamber and shall present the author’s argument for the motion, listing such reasons for the staff member/body’s dismissal as the author deems appropriate.
 * b. The motion’s target may post a defense in the course of the debate on the motion, which debate shall continue until at least ten (10) comments have been posted by members other than the author, and the motion’s author has requested that it be put to vote.
 * c. Motions of no confidence shall be subject to the same requirements for passage as all other measures, as given in clause 4(b) above.
 * d. Successful motions of no confidence shall take effect immediately, resulting in the dismissal or disbandment of the motion’s target.

Section 6: AIN Code
1. The Alliance of Independent Nations' Code of Laws (henceforth referred to as "the AIN Code") is hereby established and defined as a collection of all of the union's laws that are currently in force.

2. The AIN Code shall be stored on the union's wiki, in its own category, and on a series of pages which shall be protected such that only wiki administrators can edit them. Each title of the AIN Code (see next paragraph) shall have its own page.

3. The AIN Code shall be organized by topic into a series of titles, each of which shall be further divided into (from largest subunit to smallest) sections, paragraphs, clauses, and (if necessary) subclauses. Additional subdivisions may be created by the union staff as needed.

4. It shall be the responsibility of the union staff to organize the AIN Code and to keep it up to date as new laws are passed.
 * a. The staff shall examine all laws ever passed by the union's legislative organs, both past and present, to determine their subject matter and status (active, partly active, or repealed) for the express purpose of organizing them into titles of the AIN Code.
 * b. All laws which the staff shall judge to still be at least partly active shall be organized by subject matter into titles and their subdivisions, as defined above. Only the active clauses of partly active laws shall be included in titles of the AIN Code.
 * c. When the staff shall complete the organization of a particular title, they shall present that title to the Senate for its approval, via the existing process of discussion and voting, with a majority vote in favor required for approval. Once approval is granted, that title shall become an official part of the AIN Code.

Source
Alliance Act (2014)

Original laws
AIN Code Act (§6)