Summary
The Pirate Party International Court of Arbitration has taken an own-intended decision to decide of the validity of various points of the procedure of the November 22th "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement by the PPI board, and the following referendum, after various observations were made about potential breach of the statutes, including by the Pirate Party of Germany.
The Court of Arbitration has stated that it had the exclusive power to declare the vacancy of the PPI board seat of Finlay Archibald, so the PPI board statement was irregular. The Court has also confirmed that the PPI board cannot appoint successors without breaching the Statutes, and therefore declared invalid option 1.b) of the referendum.
The Court reminded that an online voting system for PPI votes such as an online General Assembly is possible without breaching the Statutes or contradicting the pirate movement core values. The Court has also confirmed the vacancy of both seats at the moment of the PPI statement and referendum, and then ruled that the irregularities and Statutes breaching were not significant enough to make the referendum invalid.
Eventually the Court of Arbitration declared irregular the PPI board statement and invalid the choice 1.b) of the referendum, but validated the rest of the procedure and the referendum result. This decision comes into effect immediately.
Court of Arbitration ruling n°2011-1, December the 9th
-> PPI board "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement of November 22nd and PPI board vacant seats referendum of November 22nd-29th.
THE PIRATE PARTY INTERNATIONAL COURT OF ARBITRATION,
Given the PPI Statutes,
Given the November 22th "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement by the PPI board,
Given the November 22nd-29th referendum by the PPI board,
Given the observations made by Pirate Party of Germany on November 29th,
Given the own-intended decision of the Court of Arbitration to decide of the validity of various points of the procedure.
- ABOUT NOVEMBER 22th "VACANT SEATS IN THE PPI BOARD" STATEMENT BY THE PPI BOARD
1) Considering Paul Da Silva has resigned from being a PPI board member on May 2, 2011.
2) Considering Finlay Archibald has not come for a long time to PPI board meetings, nor answered to any attempts to contact him.
3) Considering paragraph XIII. (8) of the PPI Statutes handles PPI board seats vacancy for both cases : "A Board member may resign at any moment. After resignation, death, long term disease or other situation in which a Member of the Board does not execute his functions for more than three months, his seat becomes vacant."
4) Considering PPI board has stated the loss of Finlay Archibald's PPI board membership on November 22th.
5) Considering neither Paul Da Silva, Finlay Archibald, or their PPI Member of origin has contested the November 22th statement.
6) Considering the Court of Arbitration has decided on its own initiative to study the validity of the November 22th statement.
7) Considering paragraph XIVa. of the PPI Statutes, defining the Court of Arbitration powers, imply that the Court of Arbitration shall pronounce the PPI board seats vacancy if it can cause dispute, complains or Statutes breach.
8) Considering that the PPI board could therefore announce the vacancy of Paul Da Silva PPI board seat, as his resignation was clear and cannot be contested.
9) Considering that, on the contrary, the PPI board shall not have decided the vacancy of Finlay Archibald PPI board seat, as it is subject to interpretation and this ruling is subject to dissent ; which means that the Court of Arbitration had the exclusive power to decide about it, and that therefore the November 22th statement by the PPI board was not regular.
10) Considering that the Court of Arbitration confirms both Paul Da Silva and Finlay Archibald's PPI board seats vacancy at the time of thestatement, with the result that the PPI board statement irregularity does not make the following referendum invalid.
- ABOUT NOVEMBER 22nd-29th REFERENDUM VALIDITY
11) Considering Pirate Party of Germany has issued doubts, about the validity of the PPI board nominating additional board members option, and on electronic voting.
12) Considering the Court of Arbitration has decided on its own initiative to decide on the validity of such claims.
13) Considering Statutes Amendment Proposal 3 to the PPI Statutes, adopted during the 2011 PPI General Assembly in Friedrichshafen, removed the following sentence : "In case of vacancy a substitute may be appointed by the Board until the next General Assembly."
14) Considering no part of the actual Statutes allows appointments by the board.
15) Considering paragraph XII. (4) of the PPI Statutes states that the Board "is elected by the General Assembly at the regular sessions or if an extraordinary session is requested for that purpose."
16) Considering that, in consequence, choice 1.b of the PPI board vacant seats referendum would constitute a breach of the statutes.
17) Considering that only one PPI member had voted choice 1.b.
18) Considering that, following the claim of invalidity of this vote, this PPI member has asked to change his vote to another option.
19) Considering the Court of Arbitration has accepted this demand.
20) Considering there is therefore no voters for proposition 1.b and therefore no further measures have to be taken.
21) Considering that no procedure of electronic voting that guarantee, at the same time, anonymity and secrecy of the vote, and integrity and equality, has been proposed to the PPI.
22) Considering that the use of electronic voting, and in particular any electronic voting machine, therefore implies to sacrifice either a part of secrecy or a part of integrity.
23) Considering that giving up voting integrity, like it is the case for all known electronic voting systems with full secrecy of the vote, would therefore be in contradiction with the pirate movement core values.
24) Considering that giving up secrecy of the vote, depending on the context, can be either in contradiction with the pirate movement core values or not.
25) Considering that full equality of information is not reachable in practice, and therefore only a level of highness of equality can be appreciated.
26) Considering the remote voting procedure announced by the PPI board will be a public ballot procedure, and therefore ensures full integrity of the vote in exchange of giving up secrecy.
27) Considering the voters are not citizens, but PPI members, which means public organizations, and that therefore they have in general a duty to make their decisions as transparent as possible to their members, and are less subject to intimidation or threat.
28) Considering that this implies that the publication of the vote of PPI members in a partial board election would therefore not breach the pirate movement core values, while it would be the case for the vote of citizens.
29) Considering the PPI board stated that the vote of each PPI member for the current election shall be kept secret by the Court of Arbitration until the deadline for the votes, which would give a reasonable level of equality to an asynchronous General Assembly.
30) Considering a synchronous General Assembly, which means an online meeting session, could -- provided it respects the Statutes -- give similar chances to any PPI member to change his vote until the General Assembly agrees on the decision, which gives a reasonable level of equality to a synchronous General Assembly.
31) Considering that it results from the above that an online General Assembly would not by itself breach the Statutes.
S T A T E S
Article 1) November 22th "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement by the PPI board is irregular, but with the reserve expressed at considering 10 the two seats vacancy is confirmed.
Article 2) November 22nd-29th PPI board referendum's choice 1.b of the PPI board vacant seats referendum is contrary to the PPI Statutes and therefore invalid.
Article 3) With the reserve expressed at considerings 20, 29 and 30, the rest of the referendum is valid in regard of the Statutes.
Article 4) The current decision will be published on the PPI website.
Deliberate by the Pirate Party International Court of Arbitration on December 9th of 2011, attended by the followings : Sven Clement, Marco Confalonieri, Arturo Martínez and Maxime Rouquet.
