[governance] Procedural rules for amendment of the charter

[ian.peter at ianpeter.com]

Thanks for making that all clear Norbert. In fact I believe the last 
attempted charter amendments failed, despite a 70 for, 4 against vote - 
because the number of voters did not equate with the requisite 2/3 
percentage of "members" . So that area is difficult and best left to one 
side for now.

But yes, once cocos are in place a revival of the appeals team would 
also seem appropriate.

One step at a time....

Ian

------ Original Message ------
From: "Norbert Bollow" <nb at bollow.ch>
To: governance at lists.riseup.net
Sent: 20/07/2019 3:45:25 AM
Subject: [governance] Procedural rules for amendment of the charter

>On Fri, 19 Jul 2019 16:37:40 +0000 (UTC)
>Imran Ahmed Shah" <ias_pk at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>   Hi, Bruna.This reminds to congratulate on uncontested, but it leaves
>>  here a big question about eligible voters for the charter amendment
>>  approval. Charter refer to the last election. ...If no election was
>>  held, ... is there no one eligible?..... Or all are eligible?.... or
>>  previous election will be assumed as last election??
>
>Under the procedural rules of the current version of the Charter, a
>proposal to amend the Charter must be "proposed by no fewer than ten
>(10) members", and it succeeds only if the change proposal is "approved
>by no less than two-thirds (2/3) of the members of the IGC"; that is
>clarified as follows: "In amending the charter, everyone who voted in
>the previous election will be deemed a member for amending the charter."
>
>In view of these hurdles, the only reasonable interpretation is to
>understand the term "the previous election" as referring to the last
>election where actual voting has taken place.
>
>But practically speaking, I would suggest that it makes little sense to
>initiate a charter amendment process unless there was an election (with
>actual voting) recently. Otherwise the likelihood is too great that more
>than a third of the people who voted in the last election are not
>currently actively following the list, and then the proposal will fail
>for lack of receiving enough positive votes, no matter how strong a
>consensus there might otherwise be in support of the proposal.
>
>I would further suggest that it would be wise to have an appeals team in
>place, as foreseen in the IGC Charter, before any attempt is made to
>revise the Charter. Otherwise there is no legitimate way of resolving
>any disagreements in regard to whether a proposal to amend the Charter
>was successful. That could be bad. Right now we at least know what the
>IGC Charter is.
>
>Greetings,
>Norbert
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