Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the defined terms used throughout the rulebook. Required by the plain-English duty (§0.7) and Criterion 11 (simplicity & usability). Where a term is specified in detail, the section reference is given.

BIG / British Intelligent Governance — the project and the model: a clean-slate, first-principles design for governing the United Kingdom.

Foundational Charter — the codified, written, supreme law from which all power flows and by which all of it is bound (Part I). Replaces the UK's uncodified constitution.

Inviolable rights — fundamental rights that bind every decision (§I.3). Class A are absolute and can never be limited, even in crisis (e.g. freedom from torture). Class B are qualified and may be limited only by the proportionality test.

Proportionality test — the only lawful way to limit a Class B right: prescribed by law, legitimate aim, necessary, proportionate, time-limited, with the state bearing the burden of proof (§I.3.1).

Unamendable core / eternity clause — the handful of provisions that can never be amended even by referendum (people's sovereignty, Class A rights, free elections, the amendment rule itself), so a captor cannot first change the rules for changing the rules (§I.9).

The People — the sovereign source of all authority; power is delegated, conditional, and revocable (Axiom 1). Who counts as the people is defined on a civic, rights-bound basis (Part XIII).

Mandate — what the people have asked the government to do: the ends and acceptable trade-offs, set through elections and direct participation (Parts II–III). Experts execute the mandate; they do not write it.

Ends vs means — the central distinction (§0.5): the people decide the ends (values, priorities, acceptable trade-offs); the competent decide the means (how to achieve them) within delegated scope.

Value-flagging — the test that detects when a supposedly "technical" decision is really a hidden value choice, escalating it from experts back to democratic decision (§V.4).

STV+ — Single Transferable Vote, enhanced: the recommended electoral system — multi-member constituencies, ranked ballots, Droop quota, plus an independent boundary authority, verifiable count, audit, and voter education (Part III). Scores 81/100 vs FPTP's 39/100 on BIG's matrix.

FPTP — First Past the Post: the current UK voting system, rejected as structurally flawed (Part III).

Gallagher Index — a standard measure of how far seat share diverges from vote share; above 10 indicates severe distortion (UK 2019: 11.8).

Sortition — selection by lot. Used to form Citizens' Assemblies and the standing Citizens' Sortition Chamber — demographically representative bodies immune to campaign money and re-election incentives (§II.3, §IX.2).

Representative Assembly — the elected (STV+) legislative chamber that proposes and makes law, sets priorities and budgets, and confirms appointments (§IX.2).

Expert Execution Layer — the domain bodies (Economy, Health, etc.) that choose and deliver the means within bounded, published scope; appointed via a four-stage anti-capture process (Part IV).

Review · Pause · Correct — the error-correction loop: any decision can be paused, reviewed against its predicted outcomes, and reversed (§V.7).

Integrity & Safeguard Assembly — the independent body that guarantees the integrity of the whole system (oversight, anti-corruption, transparency, outcomes measurement); itself watched by citizen juries (Part VI).

Who guards the guardians — the requirement (Axiom 4) that the integrity body, courts, and every check are themselves checked; answered ultimately by rotating citizen juries and the people (§VI.3).

Transparency ledger — the public, append-only, tamper-evident record of decisions, public money, anonymised results, and reasoning, independently replicated and auditable by any citizen (§VI.6, §VIII.4).

Outcomes ledger / wellbeing composite — the continuous public measurement of how the country is actually doing against the objective (§0.2, §VI.7); the feedback loop that tells the people whether governance works.

Crisis Defence Council — the doctrine-bound body that coordinates verified emergencies within hard limits (Part VII).

Threat Verification Matrix — the process that independently verifies a claimed emergency before any emergency power activates, with the verifier separate from the beneficiary (§VII.3).

End-to-end verifiable voting (E2E-V) — voting where each voter can confirm their vote was cast, recorded, and counted correctly, while keeping the ballot secret and receipt-free (un-provable to a coercer); software-independent (errors detectable even if the software is malicious); paper-backed; checked by risk-limiting audits (§VIII.3).

Zero-knowledge proof / unlinkable credentials — cryptography that lets a citizen prove eligibility (e.g. "eligible and not yet voted") without revealing identity or letting their activities be linked — the basis of private, sybil-resistant digital identity with no surveillance graph (§VIII.2).

Fiscal constitution — the constitutional rules governing public money: taxation by law, transparent outcome-linked budgets, debt rules, intergenerational accounting, and independent fiscal and monetary authorities (Part X).

Intergenerational accounting / long-term fund — publishing the state's true balance sheet including future liabilities, and a sovereign endowment that saves windfalls for future generations (§X.4, §X.6).

Territorial constitution — the codified, consented division of power between UK-wide, national (the four nations), and local levels, including entrenched devolution and a lawful self-determination route (Part XI).

Reserved vs devolved — powers explicitly kept at UK level (reserved) versus everything else, which sits with the nations/localities by default (§XI.3).

Subsidiarity — decisions made at the most local level that can make them effectively; the centre must justify centralisation (Axiom 12).

Militant democracy — the problem of a free system defending itself against those who would use its freedoms to destroy it; resolved by structure-first defence and a narrow, court-controlled last resort (§XIV.3).

Enforcement of last resort — what forces a captured power to obey the rules: oaths to the Charter (not to persons), the duty to refuse unlawful orders, distributed loyalty of the forces, and ultimately the engaged citizenry (§XIV.4).

Capture — any faction (elite, corporate, foreign, populist, expert, administrative) seizing the system for itself; the model is designed against all forms by construction (Axiom 11, Part XVI).

Defence-in-depth — relying on many independent safeguards so no single one is load-bearing; capturing the system requires defeating all of them at once (§XVI.5).

The rubric / the score — the twelve weighted criteria by which any governing system, including this one, is judged (§0.4); the model commits to scoring itself against them, in public, forever (§XVII.5).

See README.md for the full structure and the architecture diagram.