Jump to content
The Official RONR Q & A Forums

The Term: Subject to Confirmation


Guest Greg

Recommended Posts

On the subject of standing and ad hoc committees, our Clubs bylaws state:

 

"The President shall have the right, subject to confirmation by the Board, to appoint the chair of such standing and ad hoc committees."

 

Does this mean that Presidential appointments to chair these committees must be approved by the Board?   Is the required approval a simple majority?  If the Board does not approve of the appointment what recourse does the Board have?

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the subject of standing and ad hoc committees, our Clubs bylaws state:

 

"The President shall have the right, subject to confirmation by the Board, to appoint the chair of such standing and ad hoc committees."

 

Does this mean that Presidential appointments to chair these committees must be approved by the Board?   ...

 

... 1)   Yes.

 

O John, our first quarrel.

 

(Possibly our 531st first quarrel, but since it's close to inconceivable that John and I have even one, then every quarrel must be our first.  Q.E.D.)

 

I was at first inclined to suspect that, should the board not address the appointments whatsoever, the appointments would stand, because of the ambiguity of what "subject to" means.  But then (after about five minutes' mulling -- I am a slow and ponderous thinker, of dour and lugubrious mien) I realized that, no, that interpretation would hold if the bylaw provision were, instead, to read "subject to rejection by the Board".  Therefore the president's appointments, as I interpret this, must be confirmed by the board to be effective.

 

But my quarrel is that, notwithstanding that I wind up agreeing with Dr Stackpole on this, which I do when I know what's good for me, I'm agreeing based on one interpretation of what the bylaws provision means.  Which judgement we on the Internet, even here, on the world's premier Internet parliamentary forum, are not qualified to make; because determining what the organization's bylaws mean is exclusively the job of the organization, and while they might (and sensibly, if they know what's good for them) find the opinion of Dr Stackpole, an MIT doctor, French-Canadian fur trapper and part-time film critic, persuasive, it is not for Dr Stackpole or me to answer such an interpretation with a categorical, unequivocal "Yes." 

 

"Yes", John, is your opinion. Only. And, it happens, my opinion, only.

 

(You may quibble that the introductory pages of this, the  world's premier Internet parliamentary forum, do declare explicitly that all post here are purely the opinions of the posters, so you are already covered by simply answering "Yes."

 

(Pfui.  Quibble is what housecats eat.)

_________

N. B. I said "Q.E.D" remembering when Queen Elizabeth awarded me the QED when I secretly resolved the Falklands War crisis the way the public thinks it turned out.  I wear it on my garter.  Girls are impressed.  When they see it.

 

[Edited to tinker. Mostly grammar, aethereal pronouns especially.  Later a stupid error: "confirmation" was left in, quoting the OP's bylaws citation, and should have been replaced with "rejection."]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two points....

 

Whadyaxpec at 1:30 in the morning - War and Peace?

 

If you replace "subject to confirmation" with "with confirmation"   (a change that alters nuance to some degree, but not the dependency of the completion of the confirmation upon the agreement of the assembly to any extent) you have arrived at the very words found on p. 494, line 24.

 

No "interpretation" need.   So there!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...