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Where does it say that we're required to follow parliamentary procedure to make decisions?


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Our organization's constitution only states that RONR is the authority as to parliamentary procedure. It doesn't mention RONR or parliamentary procedure anywhere else.

I'm just unclear where it says we're required to use parliamentary procedure for decision making. Does it usually explicitly state that in the constitution/bylaws? Or does it say it somewhere else?

I'm just thinking legally, shouldn't it explicitly say somewhere that you must use RONR/parliamentary procedure for official decision making? Or are all organizations legally required to use parliamentary procedure already, and they just need to define who the authority on parliamentary procedure is?

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16 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

I don't understand the question. RONR just is a book on parliamentary procedure. What do you mean by decision making here that's separate from parliamentary procedure?

I mean - where does it usually say we're required to follow parliamentary procedure?

Just because the constitution or bylaws say RONR is the authority on parliamentary procedure, I feel that doesn't explicitly mean we have to follow parliamentary procedure itself.

Edited by user
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The recommended language for adoption of a parliamentary authority says that the parliamentary authority governs procedure except where procedural law, bylaws, or special rules of order contradict it. I would expect yours says something similar. But even if it says something like "RONR is our parliamentary authority" and leaves it at that, I'm at a loss as to what else that could mean than that you use it. 

If I'm understanding your question, you're saying that the adoption of a parliamentary authority just tells you how to use parliamentary procedure, not that you must. I would say, though, that you're going to use some form of parliamentary procedure, regardless of what rules or laws say, because in some manner, you're going to make decisions, and whatever procedure you use to do so is a parliamentary procedure. And so the adoption of RONR means that the way you will make those decisions is by following the specific rules in RONR.

I'm not sure I'm seeing the gap you're seeing, I guess.

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9 hours ago, user said:

Just because the constitution or bylaws say RONR is the authority on parliamentary procedure, I feel that doesn't explicitly mean we have to follow parliamentary procedure itself.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. It's so much whether an organization "has to" use parliamentary procedure. If an organization is in the nature of a deliberative assembly, it is using parliamentary procedure, whether the organization realizes it or not. A particular organization may well use parliamentary procedure in a manner which is very different than the common parliamentary law, but the group is still using parliamentary procedure. Saying that a deliberative assembly isn't using parliamentary procedure is like saying someone who is speaking a different language isn't speaking language at all. :)

"Parliamentary law originally was the name given to the rules and customs for carrying on business in the English Parliament that were developed through a continuing process of decisions and precedents somewhat like the growth of the common law. These rules and customs, as brought to America with the settling of the New World, became the basic substance from which the practice of legislative bodies in the United States evolved. Out of early American legislative procedure and paralleling it in further development has come the general parliamentary law, or common parliamentary law, of today, which is adapted to the needs of organizations and assemblies of widely differing purposes and conditions. In legislative bodies, there is often recourse to the general parliamentary law in situations not covered by the rules or precedents of the particular body—although some of the necessary procedure in such a case must be proper to that type of assembly alone.

The kind of gathering in which parliamentary law is applicable is known as a deliberative assembly. This expression was used by Edmund Burke to describe the English Parliament, in a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774; and it became the basic term for a body of persons meeting (under conditions detailed on pp. 1–2) to discuss and determine upon common action.

Acting under the general parliamentary law, any deliberative assembly can formally adopt written rules of procedure which, as fully explained on pages 15 ff., can confirm, add to, or deviate from parliamentary law itself. As indicated above, the term rules of order, in its proper sense, refers to any written parliamentary rules so adopted, whether they are contained in a manual or have been specially composed by the adopting body. The term parliamentary procedure, although frequently used synonymously with parliamentary law, refers in this book to parliamentary law as it is followed in any given assembly or organization, together with whatever rules of order the body may have adopted." (RONR, 11th ed., pgs. xxix-xxx)

"A deliberative assembly—the kind of gathering to which parliamentary law is generally understood to apply—has the following distinguishing characteristics:

• It is a group of people, having or assuming freedom to act in concert, meeting to determine, in full and free discussion, courses of action to be taken in the name of the entire group.

• The group meets in a single room or area or under equivalent conditions of opportunity for simultaneous aural communication among all participants.

• Persons having the right to participate—that is, the members—are ordinarily free to act within the assembly according to their own judgment.

• In any decision made, the opinion of each member present has equal weight as expressed by vote—through which the voting member joins in assuming direct personal responsibility for the decision, should his or her vote be on the prevailing side.

• Failure to concur in a decision of the body does not constitute withdrawal from the body.

• If any members are absent—as is usually the case in any formally organized assembly such as a legislative body or the assembly of an ordinary society—the members present at a regular or properly called meeting act for the entire membership, subject only to such limitations as may be established by the body's governing rules (see "quorum of members," however, p. 21; also 40).

The rules in this book are principally applicable to meeting bodies possessing all of the foregoing characteristics. Certain of these parliamentary rules or customs may sometimes also find application in other gatherings which, although resembling the deliberative assembly in varying degrees, do not have all of its attributes as listed above." (RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 1-2)

If these characteristics reasonably describe a group (even if they may not be precisely correct in every respect), then that group is in the nature of a deliberative assembly. As a result, it is using parliamentary procedure. Since your group has adopted RONR as its parliamentary authority, I assume that your group is in the nature of a deliberative assembly, as it would make no sense for a group which is not in the nature of a deliberative assembly to adopt RONR.

Groups are not "legally required" to use parliamentary procedure. Groups which are not in the nature of a deliberative assembly do not use parliamentary procedure. If I'm at a meeting at work, that isn't a deliberative assembly. We might all express our opinions, but ultimately there is one person (the boss) who makes the final decision. If a group is a deliberative assembly, however, it is using parliamentary procedure, because parliamentary procedure is the rules and practices used by deliberative assemblies.

So your organization is already using parliamentary procedure. As a result, there is no need for anything in your rules saying you have to use it. Since you are already using parliamentary procedure, the only remaining question is what parliamentary procedure to use. Your organization has answered that question by adopting RONR as its parliamentary authority (as well as whatever other rules you have adopted).

"When a society or an assembly has adopted a particular parliamentary manual—such as this book—as its authority, the rules contained in that manual are binding upon it in all cases where they are not inconsistent with the bylaws (or constitution) of the body, any of its special rules of order, or any provisions of local, state, or national law applying to the particular type of organization. What another manual may have to say in conflict with the adopted parliamentary authority then has no bearing on the case. In matters on which an organization's adopted parliamentary authority is silent, provisions found in other works on parliamentary law may be persuasive—that is, they may carry weight in the absence of overriding reasons for following a different course—but they are not binding on the body." (RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 16-17)

Edited by Josh Martin
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16 hours ago, user said:

Our organization's constitution only states that RONR is the authority as to parliamentary procedure. It doesn't mention RONR or parliamentary procedure anywhere else.

I'm just unclear where it says we're required to use parliamentary procedure for decision making. Does it usually explicitly state that in the constitution/bylaws? Or does it say it somewhere else?

I'm just thinking legally, shouldn't it explicitly say somewhere that you must use RONR/parliamentary procedure for official decision making? Or are all organizations legally required to use parliamentary procedure already, and they just need to define who the authority on parliamentary procedure is?

A lot depends on the type of organization you are.

But if you have adopted RONR as your parliamentary authority, and if parliamentary procedure is the way deliberative bodies make decisions, then you would seem to be all set.  I don't know the exact language in your bylaws, but the rules in RONR are intended to govern a society in all cases where they apply, unless you've adopted some superior rules that would supersede the ones in RONR.

What other decision-making method did you have in mind--pistols at ten paces?

 

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