[Community-Discuss] Bylaws changes

[Alan Barrett]

> On 12 Nov 2016, at 10:10, Badru Ntege <badru.ntege at nftconsult.com> wrote:
> 
> Comments inline 
> 
> 
> On 9 Nov 2016, at 2:37 pm, Mark Elkins <mje at posix.co.za> wrote:
>> 
>> And if the Board has never abused this PDP power (never even used it at
>> all) since inception yet has always had the power to do this - why then
>> is it really a problem?
> 
> There's always a first time so a need to be proactive 

Exactly!

Laws should we written in such a way that, even if your enemies become the rulers, the laws are still fair.

>> If we do have such a Bylaw (to stop potential abuse) - this would have
>> to be done by a membership vote - not a PDP meeting "consensus". This
>> might be up to 5 months away - time for lots of damage - etc.
>> 
>> On the other hand - if the Board decided that they needed to have an
>> expedited policy introduced - and they asked the Membership to vote
>> (electronically) on it - AFRINIC staff could probably pull that exercise
>> off within a working week - which should be fast enough.
> 
> Fully agree we could even have an electronic system built and ready for other potential issues that community could have input or board could gauge community sentiment on issues to assist in decision making. 

Yes, that could be done within the current PDP, under the provisions for varying the process.

However, the PDP can be changed much more easily than the Bylaws can be changed, and there remains the risk that a future version of the PDP might (accidentally) make it impossible for useful new policies to be made.  This is one of the reasons why it is essential for the Bylaws to give the Board a way of making policy bypassing the PDP.  That power of the Board should be subjected to oversight by the community and/or the members, but should not be removed.  

Alan Barrett