Non-Members Present During Deliberation of a Committee

[cgwolf]

RONR (11th Ed.), page 501, lines 11-13 states, "During actual deliberations of the committee, only committee members have the right to be present."  Also, starting on page 500, line 22, RONR states, "Committees of organized societies operate under the bylaws, the parliamentary authority, and any special rules of order or standing rules of the society which may be applicable to them. A committee may not adopt its own rules except as authorized in the rules of the society or in instructions given [page 501] to the committee by its parent assembly in a particular case."

My question is this. In an organization that has no special rules of order or standing rules established in its bylaws, no provision in the definition of this committee for non-committee members to be in attendance during committee deliberations or allowing a committee to set its own rules, it is allowable to suspend the rules to allow persons who are not members of a committee to be in attendance during committee deliberations and voting? 

Thank you for your opinions.

[Hieu H. Huynh]

The committee may allow nonmembers to attend by majority vote.

[Weldon Merritt]

Agreeing with Mr. Huynh's answer, I will just add that it is not necessary to suspend the rules to allow non-members to attend. The rules say that non-members have no right to attend, but that does not mean that they cannot be allowed to attend.