[rpd] clarify? - (Fwd) Adhoc Appeal Committee appointment

[Owen DeLong]

> 

> Its a fact that the timeliness you set for yourselves were not met as of 18th Feb 2021 but you have somewhat answered my question even though nothing would have stopped the AC from asking the board for additional time in line with section 4.4 while the AC is also being constituted.  That did not happen and the apparent gagging argument should not be an excuse. What I have noted is, the board is trying to ensure that the AC is properly constituted as it was supposed to be in light of resignations of your colleagues.


The board chair (in violation of the ToR) instructed the appeal committee to stand down. The AC (for reasons passing understanding) chose to follow that invalid order. When you stand down, there’s no validity to a request for additional time to do the work you’ve been told to stop doing, so if one is going to follow an improper stand down order, then it makes sense that one would not file an otherwise required request for more time.


> The role of the appeal committee is to review the decision of cochairs and the board must ensure that the AC is constituted with all 5 members who must contribute to final decisions and not just three or two members only.


The board is violating the ToR as written by the board in attempting to modify the constitution of the committee in the middle of an appeal. If the board wanted the ability to do this, then it should have written that into the ToR for the AC instead of the protections that are present.

The reality is that the previous board which wrote these ToR had the foresight to realize that this was an avenue for abuse of the process and a potential vector by which the board could attempt to unfairly manipulate the process. I am not accusing the current board of doing so here, but certainly there is validity to viewing their current actions with some suspicion in this regard. Obviously, I cannot know the boards motivations, whether there is true malicious intent to manipulate the process to bring about a conclusion to their liking or whether there is, instead, merely a misguided belief that the AC cannot continue with just three members. Regardless of their reasoning, the bottom line is that the ToR are quite clear on the matter and section 3 governs only the constitution of the AC at its creation or re-creation and that section 4 is controlling thereafter.


> It is unacceptable and inappropriate that fewer than 5 decide on appeals for an AC that is meant to have 5 folks to constitute it as it was intended. 


If that were true, then why doe the ToR specifically call for it to be possible. In fact, not only possible, but required under the circumstances we find ourselves in today. The ToR as written specifically preclude the board from doing what it is doing and they do so for good reason. The integrity of the process requires that the AC be able to act as an independent judiciary body not subject to adverse action by the board during their hearing of an appeal.

It’s the same reason that US Federal judgeships are lifetime appointments and it is next to impossible to remove one from the bench.


> I mean, supposed a member continues to be absent or chooses to be neutral etc or for some reason is not available, does that mean two members shall now decide on appeals? 


For the appeals now in progress, yes… Even 1 if it comes to that.

If you don’t like this, then please, by all means work with the board to get the ToR modified before the next AC is constituted. However, those are the rules as they exist today and until they are changed through a valid process, we should follow the rules as they are written.


> Perhaps its time to look at how to resolve some of this descripancies if at all they are not clear before we can forge ahead as a PDWG.


What discrepancies, exactly are you referring to?

The discrepancy between the boards behavior (which you appear to advocate) and the actual rules as written?
The discrepancy between Paolos acting to effect greater transparency (thank you, Paolos) and the board trying to act in secret?

If you have others, please, let’s spell them out, create new threads for each one and proceed to address them within the community.

Owen