[pp.int.general] [RULING] 2012-5 (Validity of 2012 GA Conference)
Andrew Norton
ktetch at gmail.com
Fri Aug 17 21:37:23 CEST 2012
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On 8/17/2012 2:49 PM, Charly Pache wrote:
> Thanks Andrew, sincerity is crucial in our party, I guess indeed that
> people who think everything was all right because the court of
> arbitration decided it are missing the point: we may tolerate what
> happened once but we have really to be better next time.
I would agree, if the SAME thing hadn't been said the year before, after
the CoA fiasco then (where the court was brought up,voted into existence
at the meeting, and then candidacy was opened and elected on the spot,
effectively allowing only those present to stand, and giving no time to
vet candidates at all.
This year we had election rules changed the morning of the election,
including the positions available, and the methods to elect them, and
the means to present candidacy. It was another mess, and on the same
basic topic as the previous years one. You can say 'we have to be better
next time', when it ended up WORSE than last year, when 'we have to be
better' was said then too.
By all the alcohol I saw consumed, there's no doubt that organizers
could manage a piss-up in a brewery, but anything political is clearly
beyond them.
> The problem
> here was the consequence of making the session invalid, it could have
> been seen as a major failure by the press, by our political opponents
> and worst, by our followers.
And then that is the price we should pay. We shouldn't reward
incompetence, or accept it because 'it is easy' or because dealing with
it as we should is hard. Otherwise yes, it's just politics as normal,
and the Pirate movement is just another political group looking out for
its own interests and willing to subvert its principles any time it may
make things hard.
The simple fact is that it WAS invalid by every criteria that should
have mattered. That these were later considered not important enough to
overrule 'inertia' is a worrying precedent.
It just means Do whatever you want, but quickly, and make sure any court
request is tied up long enough to allow us to do something that would be
risky to overturn.
By the way, No date was given for the date of complaint. If the
complaint was made before July 16th, then the Court is in violation of
it's own procedure:
"The Court of Arbitration acknowledges the reception of the complaint
within two days after any of its members has read it. The Court of
Arbitration can issue a motivated reject of the claim within one week
from this acknowledgement. The Court of Arbitration must issue a rule
within thirty days since the complaint was acknowledged."
2 days from complaint received to acknowledgement, 30 days from that to
ruling is 32 days. we'll assume that between the 5 they can manage to
check the court email within 24 hours. So, what date was the complaint
filed, Court? before or after July 16th?
>
> My guess is if we wanted to look different than the other political
> parties, we should have accept it as a failure. We would really have
> looked like a clean, sane and very honest political party. But on the
> other hand I understand why the court chose otherwise, out of fear of
> unlocking something bad.
Doesn't that say it all then? That they really don't believe the pirate
way? That at the same time that pirate parties worldwide are publicly
proclaiming how they're 'challenging politics', when it comes down to
the internal stuff, it's just as corrupt, as pathetically incestuous as
always, and the bodies charged to keep the party to the principles,
won't because they're afraid to do so.
>
> Anyway, I guess that concerning the content and the decisions we made
> there, everything went fine and we would have no other conclusions if
> the procedure would have been flawless, furthermore it was a great time
> there, the 250 participants went back full of energy and motivation,
I certainly didn't, and I don't think I'm alone. In fact, not long after
the conference, I stepped down from every position I held at the end of
April, because I was tired of actually believing and following the
principles we espouse, and seeming to be the only one. Instead we're led
by people that seem to want positions so they can get Wikipedia entries,
and add fancy titles to their business cards.
As for my motivation, I suggest you read the liveblog I started 3 hours
into the 2 hour voting block. Might give you an insight into how I felt
at the time.
http://www.ktetch.co.uk/2012/04/liverblogging-ppi-conference.html
> and
> at the end, this is the main point here. Anyway, next time we will have
> a perfect PPI GA, for the external participants as well ;)
Yeah, that too was claimed last year. There's only one way to ensure
that though. That's to make those who are the regular attendees, the
'movers and the shakers' of PPI, attend virtually for a change. Have
their comments be ignored, their input ridiculed, and their ability to
interact be curtailed, and see how they like that (or if they can even
hold on to their positions)
What the hell. I'll submit a proposal for next year, and we'll see how
people like it (of course, the board won't, which is why it'll be
rejected, in favour of another European one)
I know there's a number of journalists here (including Mike Masnick from
techdirt, and Ernesto from TorrentFreak, as well as someone from
Forbes), let's hope the likes of The Register's Orlowski aren't, or the
things the court tried to prevent happening through the ruling, will
happen anyway, and be made WORSE by it (coverups have that effect)
Andrew
>
> Cheers, Charly
>
> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Andrew Norton <ktetch at gmail.com
> <mailto:ktetch at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> On 8/17/2012 7:43 AM, Anouk Neeteson wrote:
>> Good news, on one hand the complaints of which one turns out to be
>> correct, well done Czech PP for noticing it. And also on the other
> hand,
>> the PPI has 'only' made a mistake in the procedure that can be
>> corrected, see court conclusion.
>
> Oh, plenty of people noticed it. Some, like me, just considered it 'par
> for the course'.
>
> I do find the following ruling funny
> "II) The Statute amendments passed at the conference are valid,"
> There were no amendments made (except those that would change the
> voting), that I recall. Mainly because the 2 hour election block took up
> the entire day, because of 'votes on how to vote to decide the method of
> voting' (I kid you not, people who weren't there) and interruptions to
> deal with things deemed 'more important', such as PP-EU.
>
> "That these procedural errors were not challenged during the GA,
> implying that there was no significant lack of consensus."
> I tried to, but since I was a 'remote' participant, I was ignored (and
> yet again, the 'court' failed to contact all participants so didn't
> conduct a thorough investigation). Consulting the official record is
> great, provided the official record notes everything. Since it didn't
> (because comments by the remote participants were NOT recorded, except
> in specific instances) it's not the whole story.
>
> Personally, the whole event was a disgusting show of sheer incompetence,
> and 'bureaucratic middle-fingering' (aka 'up yours with paperwork') to
> me. I'd suggest PPI hide the videos of the event, because if voters,
> journalists, or opposition parties actually saw the activities there and
> the way things were handled, they'd crucify the entire movement as
> self-important squabbling kids who have no clue.
>
> All I can say is that from my point of view, the annual meeting has two
> required parts.
> 1) That elections are held in a pre-determined manner to elect new
> officers (and the court has ruled that this didn't actually happen, just
> that something like it happened with the general indifference of the
> delegates, a bit like the 'advantage' rule with football fouls)
> 2) That proposed statute amendments are discussed and voted on (and this
> did not happen at all)
>
> Of these, the second is actually more serious. Statute amendments were
> submitted by authorized people in good faith that they would be attended
> to at the conference - the only time in the year they can generally be
> addressed. The only actual statute amendments made were to do with
> changing the positions of the board -
> http://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki//index.php?title=Statutes&action=historysubmit&diff=8334&oldid=7531
> - immediately before the elections, when the agenda
> (http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_Conference_2012) made it clear
> that vote would take place AFTERWARDS, and therefore come into effect
> for the following year. Wasn't until TWO DAYS before the event. Given
> that all amendments had to be in 4 weeks before, and amendments
> distributed 1 week before, perhaps it might have been an idea to make it
> clear to those announcing candidacy that things might change.
>
> Meanwhile, Statute X lists the functions of the General Assembly
> (http://wiki.pp-international.net/Statutes#X._Functions_of_the_General_Assembly)
> and we clearly didn't fulfill it (since the ruling makes no comment on
> this, taking their lead, I assume they agree with me that it violated
> Statute X)
>
> Don't get me wrong, I understand entirely why the court voted as it did.
> Were it to not assume apathy equated support, or that every person knew
> the statutes in detail and could accept that things had deviated and
> were happy with it; then it would have to hold the ppi elections as
> invalid.
> Not only would that mean that things like the WIPO membership would be
> invalidated (because Denis would not have been authorized to send it,
> and we're past the deadline) but also that the very members of the court
> adjudicating this would not be elected, and thus couldn't decide.
> So, as with last year's 'event', we have a question over the legitimacy
> of an election, where the court's own position is in question (see
> ruling IIIc)
>
>
>> So over all this is a good example of the transparency of the PPI.
>> I CONGRATULATE US ALL :)
>
> I wouldn't cheer yet, since the ruling actually puts a big question mark
> over transparency.
>
> Of course, no court that was worthy of the name would allow itself to be
> an arbiter in a case where it was itself a party. That's what we call
> 'conflict of interest'. A 'good example of transparency' would have the
> whole court recuse itself at the start because it's nomination and
> election is at question. It would then have looked for non-involved
> parties to look into it, and stated so publicly. It's not the first time
> either, as the court has already been asked to examine if it's own
> actions were acceptable
> (http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_CoA/PPI_CoA_Ruling_2011-1-A) and
> 'surprisingly' decided it was, with clarification. I mean who would have
> thought that the same people who were asked to decide something, would
> decide a few weeks later that their decision was fully acceptable?
>
> These are my thoughts, y'all can do with them what you will. I hold the
> Pirate Party name to a high standard, the same standard I expect of
> anyone else. It's a shame that some feel like the internal standard for
> pirates is so low by comparison. I mean I could make this a formal
> request that the court investigate their own ruling on the grounds of
> conflict of interest, but I won't bother, because I'm sure there will be
> a 'motivated reject of the claim within one week', since every judgement
> of the court has been a rubber-stamp for 'status quo' (even if it
> requires extensive redefinitions of words, such as 'country' to mean
> 'part of a country' -
> http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_CoA/PPI_CoA_Ruling_2012-3 - to
> do so.)
>
> To my mind, the 'Court of arbitration' is a highly flawed body, with
> deep-seated questions as to it's existence, and with it's establishment
> and its ongoing actions fundamentally at odds with the PP core values
> (that of open democracy, informed rule-making, transparency, and
> honesty).
>
> Andrew
> PPUK Member
> (who values integrity more than some title, or being 'liked' for that
> matter - flame away, I don't care.)
>
>
>
>> On Aug 17, 2012 12:13 p.m., "Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer"
>> <mozart.palmer at pp-international.net
> <mailto:mozart.palmer at pp-international.net>
>> <mailto:mozart.palmer at pp-international.net
> <mailto:mozart.palmer at pp-international.net>>> wrote:
>
>> Fellow Pirates,
>
>> The Court of Arbitration has made the following ruling:
>> http://wiki.pp-international.__net/PPI_CoA/PPI_CoA_Ruling___2012-5
>> <http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_CoA/PPI_CoA_Ruling_2012-5>
>
>> ==Summary==
>
>> The Pirate Parties International Court of Arbitration received a
>> complaint from the Czech Pirate Party about the proceedings of the
>> April 2012 General Assembly Conference of PPI. Due to the
> volume of
>> complaints and requests, the Court of Arbitration apologises
> for the
>> delay in ruling on this matter.
>
>> The Czech Pirate Party also lodged an addendum to the complaint,
>> which is included as part of this ruling.
>
>> Regards,
>
>> --
>> Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer
>> Court of Arbitration, Pirate Parties International
>> W: www.olbrychtpalmer.net <http://www.olbrychtpalmer.net>
> <http://www.olbrychtpalmer.net>
>> T: @OlbrychtPalmer
>
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- --
Andrew Norton
http://ktetch.co.uk
Tel: +1(352)6-KTETCH [+1-352-658-3824]
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