Re: [ga] We "decided" to defer the election of our ICANN board seats

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

> Your statement is not correct. As stated in the bylaws, candidates must be 
> nominated by the GA. The NC has decided that candidates much receive the 
> support of ten members of the GA to be considered. Anybody subscribed to 
> the GA list, the Announce list or any of the constituency lists is 
> considered a member of the GA of the DNSO.
> 
> The NC has no role whatsoever in the nominations.

Yet it seems that certain voices from the NC are trying to elimate the
GA's voice from the process of selecting the DNSO's board seats.

Since the nominations are made by the GA as a body, the GA, is
perfectly free to hold its own internal election and cull out a subset
of names, a panel of nominees if you will, that it will hand to the
NC.

The GA is perfectly free to nominate one, two, three, or even more names
from among those people who have thrown their hat into the ring and
obtained the degree of support called for the the NC.

The GA is not a simple conduit for raw, unfiltered, nominations.

Article VI-B Section 2(e) says that "The NC shall forward to the
Board, from among those persons nominated by the GA, its selection(s)
for the Director(s) to fill any open Board position(s) reserved for
the DNSO."

Notice that it says nominated by the GA itself, not by members of the GA.

That means that the GA must have a process by which it approves or
disapproves of those names that are set forth.  If the GA is a mere
pipe, as is being advocated by some, then the GA's role of
"nominating" has been rendered null and would be a violation of the
bylaws.

Had the meaning advocated by some been intended, the bylaws would have
simply said "The NC shall select among the names nominated by members
of the GA."  But the bylaws don't say that.  The bylaws say that the
nominations come from the GA as a body.

Article VI-B Section 4(d) says:
  (d) The GA shall nominate, pursuant to procedures adopted by the NC
  and approved by the Board, persons to serve on the Board in those
  seats reserved for the DNSO.

One could read that to say that the NC can create a procedure that
renders the voice of the GA faint and without power.

But that would be a false reading.

It is false because such a procedure would warp the words "The GA shall
nominate" from having a reasonable meaning into something which has no
meaning at all.  And the canons of legal interpretation are that language
shall not be construed to have no meaning.

This construction is butressed by the fact that under ICANN VI-B sections
2(b) and 2(d) the NC's role is that of a mere coordinator, not a
policymaker.  And the selection of board seats is the ultimate expression
of policy.

As such, the NC is not allowed to create a process that is so rigid
that it effectively eliminates the GA of its power to create a panel
of nominees that meets with the approval of the members of the GA
according to the the GA's own processes.

Therefore I propose that the GA hold an election by its members to
select from among those names put forward, a panel of nominees, that
the GA, as a body, will forward to the NC.

I suggest that we, the GA, select a panel of nominees consisting of three
names, and, further, that we use either cumulative or STV voting.

		--karl--