RE: [gnso-restruc-dt] Q 7, 8 - related to By-Laws and rule and Procedure

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Please see my initial responses below.

Chuck 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gnso-restruc-dt@xxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-gnso-restruc-dt@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
> Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 11:37 PM
> To: Gnso-restruc-dt@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [gnso-restruc-dt] Q 7, 8 - related to By-Laws and 
> rule and Procedure
> 
> 
> Q7. General question: By-Laws versus Rules & Procedures
> 
> To what extent does the contractual nature of Policy 
> Decisions require that rules be in the by-Laws?  To what 
> extent can flexibility be obtained by moving some items to 
> Rules & Procedures.

Chuck: I don't think there is any doubt that more flexibility can be
obtained by moving some items to Rules & Procedures, but I believe that
increased flexibility is good in some cases and not in others.  For
example, I suspect that all of us would agree that much more flexibility
is needed regarding required timeframes for policy development work.  On
the other side, I don't think that it is desirable for there to be much
flexibility in changing voting thresholds because the agreed-to
thresholds were fundamental to the total package of GNSO Council
restructuring that we recommended. Also, I strongly believe that
flexibility is not appropriate in cases where contractual terms may be
impacted because that would create conflicts and confusion and reduce
predictability.

> 
> Q8. Section 3.3 : Locality of rules and Procedure
> 
> For items that can me moved to Rules and Procedures, which 
> ones need to be part of Council Rules and Procedures and 
> which ones can be House specific Rules and Procedures?

Chuck: I suspect that answering this question will require more work
than can realistically be done via email discussion so a drafting team
may eventually be a good approach here.  Possibly we can develop some
general principles in our email discussion that could jump start the
work of a DT.  Here's my first stab at some principles: 1) Policy and
procedures that vary depending on the nature of the specific issues
should generally be in Rules & Procedures; 2) policy & procedures that
deal with critical elements of the GNSO Structure should be in the
Bylaws; 3) policy & procedures that relate to other Bylaws provisions or
existing contractual provisions should be in the Bylaws.  Once a DT
agrees on some principles, I think it would be a relatively simple
exercise for the DT to go through the existing Bylaws related to the
GNSO and categorize items according to the principles.  BTW, it may be
that the PPSC PDP work team could do some of this work.
 
> 
>