chapter one — the ınstıtutıon

Article 1 — Purpose The Memory House exists to make the Valen people legible to themselves. It does not govern; it records.

Article 2 — Nature The Memory House is independent. It takes no instructions of duty from the Council, the Speaker, or the other Houses; it is bound only by this Act.

Article 3 — The Director The Director is appointed by an absolute majority of the Council for nine years and may not be reappointed. The Director may not be dismissed during the term of office.

Article 4 — Removal The Director may be removed only on a charge of record falsification. The charge is decided by the Constitutional Board; upon that decision, the Council removes the Director by a two-thirds majority in an open vote.

Article 5 — Falsification Record falsification is this: deleting a record, changing its date, changing its source, recording an event that did not occur, or failing to record an event that did occur.

Article 6 — Organization The Memory House consists of the Main Archive in Orim-Valen, together with three sanjak and nineteen municipal record offices.

Article 7 — Absence of authority The Memory House gives effect to no record. Giving effect to a record belongs to the relevant House or to the court.

Article 8 — Its own case In a dispute over the accuracy of a record, the Memory House is a party, not a judge. Such disputes are decided by the Constitutional Board.

chapter two — the record

Article 9 — Definition A record is a statement of an event bearing a date, an address, and a source. If any of these three is missing, no record has been established.

Article 10 — Source requirement A record whose source is not shown is without effect. It is not punished — it does not stand.

Article 11 — Kinds of source The recognized sources are these: 1. The official's own observation 2. A document 3. The person's own statement 4. A court decision 5. The reading of a measuring instrument 6. Another record

Article 12 — The chain A record whose source is another record shows that record's address. The chain cannot close without resting on an observation, a document, a statement, or a measurement.

Article 13 — An unclosed chain A record whose chain does not close is marked unsupported. No act may be taken in reliance on an unsupported record; yet the record remains in place.

recording the unknown

Article 14 — Three states Every record field is in one of three states:

| State | Meaning | |---|---| | known | There is a value bound to a source | | unknown | There is no value, and this has been recorded | | conflicting | More than one source gives a different value |

Article 15 — Prohibition of filling An empty field may not be filled by guess, by analogy, by average, or by inference.

The unknown is not zero. An unknown field is written as unknown.

Article 16 — Conflict In a conflicting field, no one of the sources is chosen. Both values enter the record together with their sources, and the field remains conflicting.

Only a court or a new source resolves the conflict.

event and opinion

Article 17 — The boundary The Memory House records events; it does not record opinions.

Article 18 — The test of an event An event is what a stranger present at that place and at that moment could observe.

No statement that requires an inference about an inner state is an event.

Article 19 — What may not be recorded The following may not enter the record in any form: 1. A person's thoughts, beliefs, and opinions 2. Their vote and their political leaning 3. Whom they meet and with whom they are found 4. What they read, what they call, what they search for 5. Any inference, guess, or probability concerning any of these

Article 20 — Attributed opinion That an opinion was declared — by whom, and when — is an event and is recorded; the opinion itself is not entered against the person.

Court reasoning, a physician's assessment, and an expert's opinion fall within this scope: they are written under the name of the one who made the assessment and do not enter the record of the one assessed.

chapter three — address and call

Article 21 — Address Every record has a call name conforming to the Address Regulation. A record without an address may not be kept.

Article 22 — Readability The address must be readable in its primary form. A digest, a hash, or a meaningless string may not be the primary name.

Article 23 — Permanence An address does not lapse. Though the person die, the record close, or the judgment extinguish, the address remains in place.

Article 24 — Right of call Every Valen may call any address. The call is free of charge, and no reason is asked.

Article 25 — Non-recording of calls Who calls what does not enter the record, is not counted, and is not stored.

Article 26 — The address of refusal A call that cannot lawfully be answered does not return empty. It returns these: the record's address, the fact that it is closed, its basis, and its opening year.

Article 27 — Prohibition of secret records In Valen there may be secrets; the existence of a secret may not be hidden. A record whose existence is not visible to a call is without effect.

chapter four — correctıon, extınguıshment, closure

Article 28 — Prohibition of deletion No record is deleted, struck through, or removed from its place.

Article 29 — Correction by supplementary record An error is corrected by writing over it. The erroneous record remains in place and is marked corrected; it shows the address of the supplementary record.

Article 30 — Request for correction Anyone may request the correction of an error in their own record. The request is made in writing and is concluded within forty days.

Article 31 — Refusal If a request for correction is refused, the refusal enters the record with its reasons. The person concerned may apply to the Constitutional Board.

Article 32 — Third persons The correction of an error in another person's record may not be requested; yet notice of the error enters the record.

Article 33 — Extinguishment An extinguished judgment appears in its record as extinguished. The date and the basis of extinguishment are written.

Article 34 — Use of the extinguished An extinguished judgment may not serve as evidence against a person, may not be asked about, and may not be demanded in hiring or in official proceedings.

Article 35 — Closed records A person may request the closure of their own record. A closed record is not deleted; it opens after one hundred years.

Article 36 — Visibility of closed records The address of a closed record, the fact that it is closed, and its opening year remain visible. Its content is not visible.

chapter fıve — prohıbıtıons

Article 37 — Prohibition of scoring The Memory House may not score, rank, or grade any Valen, nor bind any Valen to a measure of risk or of trust.

Under Constitution art. 12, human dignity cannot be measured.

Article 38 — Prohibition of profiling No compilation may be established that draws inferences about a person's behavior, leanings, or opinions.

Article 39 — Prohibition of prediction No prediction of a person's future behavior may be produced from the records, and no act may be taken in reliance on such a prediction.

Article 40 — Prohibition of mass surveillance Without the ground of a specific record, persons' locations, movements, or contacts may not be tracked or gathered.

Article 41 — Prohibition of trade Records may not be sold, rented, pledged as security, or transferred in bulk to an outside body.

Article 42 — Prohibition of discrimination No record may be arranged so as to receive different treatment on the grounds listed in Constitution art. 13.

Article 43 — No exceptions The prohibitions of this chapter continue to apply even in a state of necessity.

chapter sıx — the clerk and responsıbılıty

Article 44 — The record clerk The record clerk is the official who establishes the record and shows its source. On every record the clerk's name and registry number are visible.

Article 45 — The oath On taking up the office, the record clerk reads and signs the following:

> "I will write what I have seen. I will not write what I have not seen. What I do not know, I will call unknown. What I have written, I will not erase."

Article 46 — Personal responsibility The clerk is personally responsible for the record they establish. The responsibility cannot be shifted onto another and is not lifted by instruction.

Article 47 — Resistance to instruction The clerk does not carry out an instruction contrary to this Act. The resistance enters the record and may not be used against the clerk.

Article 48 — Duty to report A clerk who believes they have seen falsification reports it directly to the Constitutional Board. The report cannot be suppressed, and the one who reports is protected.

Article 49 — Punishment Record falsification is defined as a distinct offense in the Penal Code and does not extinguish.

Article 50 — The one judgment that does not extinguish The judgment for record falsification is the exception to Constitution art. 47. This judgment does not extinguish; for if it extinguished, the order of records that is its foundation would extinguish with it.

chapter seven — oversıght

Article 51 — Random Verification Each year, before Record Day, forty-one Valen chosen by lot compare four hundred records chosen by lot against their sources.

Article 52 — Participation The person chosen is bound to take part. The time of participation is paid, and no employer may prevent it.

Article 53 — Independence The verification panel works independently of the Memory House. The Memory House gives the panel access and may not direct it.

Article 54 — The error rate The panel counts how many of the four hundred records do not match their sources. The error rate is a national statistic and is read aloud in the square on Record Day.

Article 55 — The threshold If the error rate exceeds two percent for three years in a row, the Council is bound to apply to the Constitutional Board concerning the Director.

Article 56 — The institution's own record The Memory House records its own acts: every correction, every closure, every refusal, every grant of access.

Citizens' calls are not within this scope (art. 25).

Article 57 — Annual report Each year the Memory House publishes the number of records, the number of corrections, the number of unsupported records, the number of conflicting fields, and the error rate.

chapter eıght — preservatıon

Article 58 — Materials Permanent records are kept on Valen archival paper, in plant-based ink, in hand-sewn binding. The specification is set by the House of Science and Forest.

Article 59 — Duplication Every permanent record is kept in at least two copies; the copies are kept in different sanjaks.

Article 60 — The external copy The microfilm copy of the ledgers of 1878–1945 continues to be kept outside the country. Its location is disclosed to no one but the Director and the Chief Warden.

Article 61 — The digital copy The digital copy is not the original; it is a convenience. Where the digital and the paper conflict, the paper governs.

Article 62 — Guarantee of access Records may not be kept in a form whose reading requires a special device, a permission, or a service.

chapter nıne — fınal provısıons

Article 63 — Past records Records kept from 1878 until the entry into force of this Act stand. Those whose source is not shown are marked unsupported; they are not deleted.

Article 64 — Implementation The implementing regulations of this Act are prepared by the Memory House and approved by the Constitutional Board.

Article 65 — Entry into force This Act enters into force on the day it is recorded.

65 articles · The counter-rationale, pursuant to Constitution art. 24, has been recorded as a separate text.