Online GA 2015/Rules of Procedure Proposal 1

Rules of Procedure of the PPI General Assembly

Art. 1 General

1. These Rules of Procedure govern the course of this online General Assembly.
2. The General Assembly Team Rules of Procedure govern the conduct of the GA Team and these Rules of Procedure enforce their provisions.
3. The proposed medium for the initial aspect of this online General Assembly is Mumble, with a seven (7) day voting period taking place at the conclusion of this meeting via email to the GA Team.
4. The General Assembly is composed of all the Members of Pirate Parties International, represented by a delegate or delegates not exceeding six from any one Member Organization. <ref>Statutes IX(1)</ref><ref>Statutes IX(4)</ref>
5. All local and remote delegates must present written authorization from a member of their respective board unless they are designated International Coordinator or equivalent on their party's official website. Each person may represent as a delegate of no more than 2 parties.
6. All delegates must provide their PGP public key to the GA team prior to being considered registered as the delegate. <ref>Statutes XI(3)</ref>
7. Ordinary Members of PPI are eligible to vote.
8. All Members of PPI are eligible to submit motions prior to the acceptance deadline.<ref>Statutes IV(4)c</ref><ref>Statutes V(2)c</ref>
9. Any official debate and voting may only continue when a third of Ordinary Members are represented.<ref>Statutes IX(5)</ref>
10. The Rules of Procedure must be adopted by a simple majority of the Ordinary Members present or represented, and voting. They enter immediately into force.<ref>Statutes IX(1)</ref>

Art. 2 Hearing Process

1. The Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson of the General Assembly shall be appointed by the PPI Board.<ref>Statutes XIII(1)e</ref>
2. The Chairperson may resign during the Meeting. Then a new Chairperson is appointed by the PPI Board.
3. The Chairperson leads the proceedings, recognizes speakers, and maintains decorum and order during the meeting.
4. The Chairperson sets details of the procedure.
5. Requests for the floor by local and remote delegates or PPI Officers are acknowledged in the order received. In questionable cases the Chairperson decides. Chairperson can not participate in the debate.
6. The Chairperson cannot yield the floor to speakers who are not members of delegations.
7. The Chairperson cannot yield the floor to speakers and the person who made the motion also out of turn.
8. If a speaker deviates too much from the motion at hand, the Chairperson admonishes him to speak to the subject.
9. If a speaker disregards the warnings and calls to order of the Chairperson, the Chairperson may deny him the opportunity to speak.

Art. 3 Remote delegates

1. For the purposes of an Online General Assembly, all delegates are considered to be remote.

Art. 4 Agenda

1. The GA team proposes an initial agenda draft.<ref>Statutes XIII(1)e</ref>
2. No agenda items relating to motions may be raised after the respective deadlines have already passed as specified in the extraordinary online GA timeline.
3. Each Member may propose changes to the agenda.
4. The agenda must be approved before any other debate starts.

Art. 5 Motions and countermotions

1. For this extraordinary online General Assembly, the Members may only make procedural motions, except for those motions specified in the agenda that are necessary for the smooth functioning of this GA as per the statutes.
2. Other than motions required to be undertaken in order to meet the requirements of the statutes, all motions will be considered as part of an online voting period defined in Article 6.
3. All motions must be provided in writing on the PPI wiki.

Art. 5.1 Statute amendment proposals

1. Statute amendment proposals may be edited up to the date of this meeting after the statutory deadline for their acceptance by the proposer.
2. Amendments to these proposals may be provided up to the date of this meeting.
3. Carried amendments do not come into force until the completion of the seven (7) day voting period except where otherwise specified.

Art 5.2 Other motions

1. All other motions may be provided up to the date of this meeting.

Art. 6 Voting

1. All motions submitted prior to the relevant deadlines will be considered for voting as part of a seven (7) day online voting period.
2. The ballot must be provided by 18:00 UTC on the seventh (7th) day after the meeting ends. Any ballots received after this deadline will be disregarded.
3. A ballot will be prepared and voted on by simple majority at this meeting.
4. The agreed upon ballot will then be completed by registered delegates and provided to the GA Team, signed with their registered PGP key, by email to the specified address.
5. The GA Team will tally up the votes and provide the results by 23:59 UTC the day after the ballot deadline by email to the delegates and publication on the website.
6. Motions independent from others are voted on one after the other.
7. Motions subsidiary to others are voted on before the main motion.
8. If motions are competing, they are put to a preferential vote using the Schulze method, with each option plus the option "No change". If "No change" should win, then the motion fails, otherwise the Schulze method winner is the winning motion.
9. For those motions that are not being put to the ballot, before a vote, the Chairperson reads the question aloud. The full question is recorded in the minutes.
10. A motion is passed by a simple majority of the Members present or represented and voting. In the event of a tie, the motion is defeated. Abstentions are not taken into account.<ref>Statutes XI(1)</ref>
11. Decisions concerning the admission of new Members,<ref>Statutes III(4)</ref> the exclusion of Members,<ref>Statutes VII(2)</ref> the determination of the annual affiliation fee<ref>Statutes XVI(1)</ref> and the amendment of Statutes<ref>Statutes XX</ref>, shall be passed by a two thirds majority of the votes cast. Abstentions are not taken into account.<ref>Statutes XI</ref>
12. The delegates vote by sending "yes", "no" or "abstain" using the text field in the Mumble client. Only correctly spelt votes will be counted, without exception.
13. The tabulation of votes is performed by a tabulator named by the Chairperson.
14. All votes from all delegations will be recorded one by one, except for procedural motions. The results are recorded in the minutes. These delegates who wish for their vote to be recorded may request so.
15. All votes will be cast openly. As there are only delegates present and voting, there is no need for secret voting.
16. Quorum will be determined by the number of members registered to vote by the relevant deadline prior to the meeting.

Art. 7 Procedural Motions

1. Procedural motions (on debating, voting, or electing) can be made and justified at any time out of normal speaking order. Requests for procedural motion is made by delegates with a text message of "timeout".
2. Procedural motions are the following:
   • a. Procedural motion to change the Rules of Procedure;
   • b. Procedural motion to suspend the meeting. A time frame must be given;
   • c. Procedural motion to limit floor time for speakers;
   • d. Procedural motion to close a speakers list; additional speakers need to request the floor, after that, the speaking list is closed.
   • e. Procedural motion to reopen a closed speaking list;
   • f. Procedural motion to end debate;
   • g. Procedural motion to end the agenda item;
   • h. Procedural motion to re-appoint the chairperson;
   • i. Procedural motion to recount the votes;
   • j. Procedural motion to revoke a decision of Chairperson (must be proposed immediately after the decision is announced);
   • k. Procedural motion to assess the quorum. If the quorum is not established, the Chairperson announces a time until that the Assembly is in recess. After the break the assessment of quorum repeats.
3. In the event that nothing else is ordained, in all these cases the debate shall be suspended until the procedural motion is handled and the vote taken.
4. Procedural motions are passed by simple majority. Abstentions are not taken into account.

Art. 8 Minutes

1. The Chairperson appoints the keeper of the minutes.
2. The minutes record a summary of the debate and the decisions taken.
3. The minutes also record the results of the online voting.
4. The keeper publishes the minutes within two weeks after the Conference on the PPI website and announces the publication by email to all Members and PPI organs.
5. After publication the Members or the PPI Board may object to the minutes within four weeks. If no objections have been tendered, the minutes stand accepted. If there are objections the keeper corrects the minutes and the respite restarts.

References

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