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Removal of Members


Guest Ellie

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We are an assembly with bylaws which make no mention of removal or discipline of members or officers. We are part of a larger organization which provides an appeal mechanism for issues within our assembly. Our President has filed a complaint with the larger organization asking for the removal of all members the opposition to a disputed election from our assembly. I am confused as to how this is valid? What I read in RRNR, Chapter XX is that to institute disciplinary hearings a member must provide a Resolution in our assembly of the form Resolved, That a committee of . . . [perhaps "five"] be elected by ballot to investigate allegations of X, which, if true, cast doubt on her fitness to continue as a member, and that the committee be instructed, if it concludes that the allegations are well-founded, to report resolutions covering its recommendations to begin to achieve such an action. No such Resolution has ever be proposed.

 

Is our President's complaint to the larger organization non-compliant with RRNR? For such a resolution to occur in our assembly, is it a simple majority vote or something greater?

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Your organization is apparently subject to the bylaws and rules of a "parent" organization of some sort, so that may control your disciplinary process.  You need to know what those rules are.

 

If the bylaws of your organization and your parent organization are silent as to discipline or expulsion from membership, then the provisions of Chapter XX of RONR that you have been reading kick in and dictate the procedure to be followed.  A majority vote is all that is required by RONR to adopt a resolution creating an investigating committee to investigate the allegations.   This should be done in an executive session or at least when non members are not present.  RONR page 657.

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Your organization is apparently subject to the bylaws and rules of a "parent" organization of some sort, so that may control your disciplinary process.  You need to know what those rules are.

You are correct that our assembly is subject to the bylaws of a "parent" organization, our own bylaws, and RRNR. Our parent organization's bylaws reference disciplinary and removal process for its own members but not that of subordinate assemblies. Therefore I would think that RRNR is the guiding body. Correct?

 

If the bylaws of your organization and your parent organization are silent as to discipline or expulsion from membership, then the provisions of Chapter XX of RONR that you have been reading kick in and dictate the procedure to be followed. RONR page 657.

Given their silence, would not the President's complaint be out of order until a Resolution for an investigative committee has be raised, approved, and something has gone awry?
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You are correct that our assembly is subject to the bylaws of a "parent" organization, our own bylaws, and RRNR. Our parent organization's bylaws reference disciplinary and removal process for its own members but not that of subordinate assemblies. Therefore I would think that RRNR is the guiding body. Correct?

 

Given their silence, would not the President's complaint be out of order until a Resolution for an investigative committee has be raised, approved, and something has gone awry?

 

No one has a view on this?

 

Please be patient. Some of our finest volunteer parliamentarians are out on their yachts.

If only I had a yacht....today would be a perfect day to be out on it!   I was messing with politics  and out with my dogs.  The dogs didn't behave either, probably because they were frustrated that I was paying too  much attention to politics and not enough attention to them.  They taught me that they were going to go for their walk with me or without me.  :)

 

Back to the issue at hand.

 

I suspect that the president's complaint might be out of order or beyond the power of the parent organization to deal with, based on what you have told us, and that the parent organization has no power to discipline the members of your local organization absent some specific authority to do so.  We have not seen those rules or bylaws.  However, it will be up to the parent organization to rule that his his complaint is something that must be handled locally.  You and others and even your local organization are all free to asset to the parent organization that they have no power to deal with it and that it is a local matter that should be dealt with locally.

 

Whether his "complaint" is out of order is something we cannot tell you.  Based on what you have told us, I think you have the right idea.

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I've looked further. Our parent organization does have jurisdiction over complaints or appeals of our group. There is no further guidance on their authority. Given RRNR, would that mean precedence goes to the subordinate

assembly to discipline? In any case, would not a resolution and an investigative committee have to be created by some assembly rather than jumping to a complaint?

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You are correct that our assembly is subject to the bylaws of a "parent" organization, our own bylaws, and RRNR. Our parent organization's bylaws reference disciplinary and removal process for its own members but not that of subordinate assemblies. Therefore I would think that RRNR is the guiding body. Correct?

 

If it is indeed correct that the bylaws of the parent organization and the organization's own bylaws are silent on this subject (there seems to be some ambiguity about whether this is the case), then yes, the rules in RONR are controlling.

 

Given their silence, would not the President's complaint be out of order until a Resolution for an investigative committee has be raised, approved, and something has gone awry?

 

Without knowing what the President's complaint is regarding or what these rules regarding complaints actually say, I don't know if I can answer that.

 

Our parent organization does have jurisdiction over complaints or appeals of our group.

 

I'm still not entirely certain what this means.

 

In any case, would not a resolution and an investigative committee have to be created by some assembly rather than jumping to a complaint?

 

Maybe, maybe not. Your original post suggests that there is a "disputed election," so it seems there is already something to complain about. Whether removing members is a possible resolution of such a complaint, or whether such complaints are not in order until the member has first attempted to address the issue within the local society (which would seem to be a sensible rule) are not questions we can answer as we don't have the slightest idea what these rules say.

 

It will ultimately be up to the parent organization to interpret its bylaws. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 588-591 for some Principles of Interpretation.

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Maybe, maybe not. Your original post suggests that there is a "disputed election," so it seems there is already something to complain about. Whether removing members is a possible resolution of such a complaint, or whether such complaints are not in order until the member has first attempted to address the issue within the local society (which would seem to be a sensible rule) are not questions we can answer as we don't have the slightest idea what these rules say.

... It will ultimately be up to the parent organization to interpret its bylaws. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 588-591 for some Principles of Interpretation.

Fair enough. I have received informal guidance that it is likely to be out of order. To do otherwise would create a precedence for and end run around all subordinate assemblies which is not in the interests of the parent group. They act as a sort of "appeals court" and prefer as little as possible to come to their attention.

I will investigate pgs. 588-591.

In order to raise such an item as out of order, is this a proper way to do this? Or is it as simple as stating that this item appears to be out of order (note, such an item will need to be done in writing, per our procedure, not in a meeting).

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Your original post suggests that there is a "disputed election," so it seems there is already something to complain about. Whether removing members is a possible resolution of such a complaint, or whether such complaints are not in order until the member has first attempted to address the issue within the local society (which would seem to be a sensible rule) are not questions we can answer as we don't have the slightest idea what these rules say.

 

It will ultimately be up to the parent organization to interpret its bylaws. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 588-591 for some Principles of Interpretation.

Yes there is something to complain about however that is not the complaint which has been filed. Complaint from our President is not to dispute the election. It is to ask for proceedings to be started by the parent body to remove her opposition as members of the assembly (not the parent body).

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In order to raise such an item as out of order, is this a proper way to do this? Or is it as simple as stating that this item appears to be out of order (note, such an item will need to be done in writing, per our procedure, not in a meeting).

 

The ordinary way for the chair to make a ruling that a motion is out of order is for the chair to do so during a meeting. If the rules require that this be initiated outside of a meeting, that complicates things a bit, but I'd personally suggest that the chair wait until the next meeting to make a formal ruling on the subject (if possible). He's certainly free to advise the member prior to that time that he intends to rule it out of order and his reasons for doing so.

 

Yes there is something to complain about however that is not the complaint which has been filed. Complaint from our President is not to dispute the election. It is to ask for proceedings to be started by the parent body to remove her opposition as members of the assembly (not the parent body).

 

If the disputed election is an unrelated issue, then I'm inclined to agree that the disciplinary procedures in RONR would be the appropriate first step. I'm still not entirely clear on the parent organization's rules on this subject, but it seems that they provide that the organization may review the actions of its subordinate units. As of yet, there don't seem to be any actions to review.

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I believe the President things that if the opposition is gone then they win the election.

Back on my question. The out of order must be provided in writing to the parent organization. My question is how to phrase it to be RRNR compliant. The ruling on it will be at a meeting.

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I believe the President things that if the opposition is gone then they win the election.

Back on my question. The out of order must be provided in writing to the parent organization. My question is how to phrase it to be RRNR compliant. The ruling on it will be at a meeting.

 

The chair just says that the complaint is out of order and provides his reasoning - and the reasoning has more to do with the parent organization's bylaws than with the rules in RONR, so I don't know what more I can tell you.

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I think I wasn't clear. For us to get this ruled out of order, we need to specify that in our written comments with respect to the President's complaint to the parent body. The parent body will rule on our recommendation. My question is on the form that our statement comes in.

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I think I wasn't clear. For us to get this ruled out of order, we need to specify that in our written comments with respect to the President's complaint to the parent body. The parent body will rule on our recommendation. My question is on the form that our statement comes in.

 

RONR has pretty much nothing to say about what you do outside of meetings, so it has nothing to say about what form this statement should take.

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