Regarding provisos

[Guest gary_leach@att.net]

An assembly wanted to do A. A member wants to do B, but B is not permissible unless A is first adopted. A is currently in the hands of a committee. During a recess, the member asks if it would be permissible to move the adoption of B, contingent on the adoption of A. This sounds a little like a proviso, but my impression of a proviso is that it provides a definite date/time of implementation. In this case, that is not possible, since we cannot even be certain that A will be implemented, let alone when. I don't think this would have been a valid use of creating a proviso, but would like to hear other opinions and references, in case something like this should come up again.

[Rob Elsman]

B does not sound like a free-standing, independent proposal to me.  I think it will be best to amend A by adding B.

[Dan Honemann]

On 4/27/2024 at 2:50 PM, Guest gary_leach@att.net said:

An assembly wanted to do A. A member wants to do B, but B is not permissible unless A is first adopted. A is currently in the hands of a committee. During a recess, the member asks if it would be permissible to move the adoption of B, contingent on the adoption of A. This sounds a little like a proviso, but my impression of a proviso is that it provides a definite date/time of implementation. In this case, that is not possible, since we cannot even be certain that A will be implemented, let alone when. I don't think this would have been a valid use of creating a proviso, but would like to hear other opinions and references, in case something like this should come up again.

Much depends upon the exact substance of A and B, but generally speaking I am not aware of anything in RONR which prevents the use of this sort of a "provided, however, that" clause.