[gnso-osc] FOR ADOPTION June 4 GCOT Ops Section 3.8 - absences
Dear OSC members,
FOR REVIEW AND ADOPTION by June 4
Please find attached Section 3.8 of the GNSO operating manual on absences and
vacancies.
Below are notes from GCOT on how they addressed the issues raised (some of which
overlap with section 4 on voting.
But for the process of OSC adoption this will be the subject of a separate
mail).
Philip
_____
To: OSC Members
In early March 2010, in preparation for the ICANN Nairobi meetings, the GNSO
Council Operations Team (GCOT) submitted to the OSC a new Chapter 4.0-Voting
that it recommended be included within the GNSO Operating Procedures (GOP). As
you will recall, the major purpose of that document was a new set of provisions
for handling abstentions. Accompanying the new GOP chapter, the GCOT also
attached an Executive Summary which discussed the major implications of
abstentions as they apply to GNSO Council voting and explained the GCOT's
rationale in developing its recommendations.
During the OSC's Nairobi session, several questions were raised by OSC members
that caused the GCOT to revisit and revise certain sections of the document.
In addition, as a result of the team's continued deliberations, additional
changes have been made although the underlying architecture of the abstention
remedies remains intact.
For the purposes of informing the OSC as to the revisions made, we thought it
might be useful to outline them in the following section versus attempting to
rewrite the original Executive Summary (attached), which otherwise continues to
be an accurate rationale for the GCOT's work on abstentions.
Summary of GCOT Amendments since Nairobi:
1) New Section 3.8-Absences and Vacancies
At the time the original Section 4.5-Abstentions was drafted, it included
applying the Temporary Alternate remedy for certain absence conditions. During
its review, the General Counsel's office recommended that, instead of confusing
absences and abstentions, a new section be added to the GOP to cover absences.
That section was not completed prior to Nairobi; however, it is included in this
transmission. The title was subsequently changed to, "Section 3.8-Absences and
Vacancies" as a result of a question raised during Nairobi, that is, "Do
Councilor vacancies cause the voting denominator to change?"
The GCOT recognized that, while vacancy procedures exist in the Bylaws {Article
X, Section 3(3)}, nothing is stated about what happens to the voting thresholds
in such situations. Certainly a permanent vacancy would ultimately be resolved
by electing a replacement; however, there might be a period of vacancy before
the new Councilor takes his/her seat. During such transitions, the GCOT is
recommending that the Temporary Alternate remedy be made available to appointing
organizations. Section 3.8 was amended to address temporary vacancies and, as
OCS members will note, it also covers planned and unplanned absences as well as
leaves of absence.
2) A second issue raised in Nairobi was the need for a procedure that
allows Councilors to provide a reason or explanation when voting "Yes" or "No."
There is a prevailing perception that to offer an explanation requires an
abstention. To clarify this subject, the GCOT elected to modify the GOP (see
Section 4.3.2) to provide that, while Councilors are not required to give a
reason for a "No" or "Yes" vote, it is permissible and such explanations will be
recorded in the minutes.
3) A third question raised in Nairobi was, "Did the GCOT consider the
concept of a 'Permanent' Alternate? Staff responded that General Counsel's
advice was to ensure that any application of "Temporary Alternate" be incident
specific and limited in duration; however, there is nothing in the procedures
that would prevent a SG/C from selecting an individual who is, more or less, "on
call" to become a TA whenever that remedy is needed.
4) After further deliberation, the GCOT determined that, due to the unique
challenges presented by the Nominating Committee Appointees (NCA) in not having
"appointing organizations" as defined in the procedures, it would be
logistically impractical to involve the Houses in approving remedies for
abstentions. The team decided to rewrite the provisions for House NCAs to
permit Proxy Voting and Temporary Alternate remedies that are automatically
activated (based on conditions and rules) without requiring action by the Houses
or the Nominating Committee.
5) The term "Appointing Organization" was needed in Section 3.8, but it had
only been defined in Section 4.5. In order to permit the use of this
terminology throughout the GOP, Staff will be recommending a new "Definitions"
section to be included in Chapter 1.0. Staff will also be recommending several
additional GOP improvements including a Table of Contents, a Document Revisions
section, and placeholders for new chapters that are in process (e.g. Chapter
5.0-Statements and Disclosures of Interest and Chapter 6.0-GNSO Work
Prioritization).
The GCOT hopes that the above summary of changes will be instructive for OSC
members in reviewing the revised Chapter 4.0-Voting and Section 3.8-Absences &
Vacancies.
The GCOT's expectation is that the OSC, in its review process, may make certain
non-substantive amendments to these documents; however, it requests that any
substantive changes be remanded to the team for further deliberation.
If the OSC needs additional explanation or rationale for any of attached
procedures, please let us know. On behalf of the GCOT members, we would like to
thank the members of the OSC for their support and feedback to our efforts over
the past 15 months.
Sincerely,
Ray Fassett
Chair
GCOT
Attachment:
GCOT ops section 3 8 Absences 5-2010 v1.doc
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