I am only a participant. 


However, this seems to me to be a little " over the top" in misundertanding the obligation to be independent in decision and not attending ICANN. 


Otherwise, we cannot allow any ICANN staff, including the Senior staff, supporting staff and Board to engage with the community, as they will be "infected" by us. 


I know I am a winsome personality, but I note with some regret that no one ever changed their view after encountering me at a breakfast, or over a social event.  I must need to improve my powers of persuasion. Perhaps I can study DUNE, and seek to achieve some kind of magical powers, where if one has a drink or food in my presence, suddenly they are converted to my "view". 


How about this: no ICANN staff should accept a paid drink, or meal from a member of the community 


Full stop. 


No ICANN staff should discuss pending policy positions -- WAIT, isn't it important for the ICANN staff to listen to the community.  BUT, again, the Ombudsman is not ICANN staff. so? 


The Ombudsman should buy his/her own coffee, drinks, dinner, etc, if they happen to attend events where such costs occur. 


HMMM.



The Ombudsman should be independently funded, and the office of the Ombudsman should be required to NOT discuss any pending or ongoing procedure that they are engaged in.  


The Ombudsman's office should attend, without offering comment, as many of the ICANN events as possible, and attend as many sessions on site as possible, while fulfilling their obligations as the independent Ombudsman. 



From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Michael Karanicolas <michael@law-democracy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 10:16 PM
To: Mueller, Milton L
Cc: CCWG accountability WS2; ws2-ombudsman@icann.org; Thomas Rickert
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] [Ws2-ombudsman] IOO WS2 Sub Group first Report to the CCWG-Accountability WS2 for consideration at Sept Meeting
 
Hi all,

Just to chime in - #3 really seems like a good point, to me. I could
certainly see a potential complainant for, say, harassment, being
deterred from reporting if they saw the Ombudsman drinking and
socializing with the subject of their complaint. Though it may make
the job less fun - I do think it's important to keep distance when one
has such a position.

#2 also seems very important... but also challenging. Having an
external 3rd party provide ombudsman services may not solve this
problem since, presumably, they would still need to be contracted in
by ICANN, leaving them equally subject to influence - and potentially
even more so. Imagine the Ombudsman was someone seconded over from
some KPMG-like organization. Wouldn't their higher ups pressure them
to avoid rocking the boat, and jeopardizing the contract? I am
personally more accustomed to such challenges in a public sector
context where, indeed, longer and fixed-term contracts (security of
tenure) are the preferred means of ensuring that an official (like,
say, human rights commissioners) won't be swayed by political forces,
along with making the official difficult to fire through oversight of
termination proceedings and strong and specific requirements for cause
(incapacity, missing a certain number of meetings, demonstrated
incompetence, etc.).

Just some thoughts. Thanks of course to Sebastien for his excellent
work on this, and to Farzi for bringing these issues up.

Michael Karanicolas

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Mueller, Milton L <milton@gatech.edu> wrote:
> I find it difficult to see how anyone could disagree with these points.
>
>
>
> 1. I don't think we can solve the problem of independence by giving the
> ombudspersons a 5 year contract. I have provided my reasons before. If by 5
> years fixed contract you mean the Ombuds office as an entity should be given
> a fixed term contract that is fine. But ombudspersons getting fixed
> five-year contract won't solve the problem.
>
>
>
> 2. Ombuds has to be an office and not a person. At the moment it's a person.
> I think to maintain the independence of the office, we need to have
> preferably an external organization that provides ombuds services and its
> revenue is not only dependent on ICANN. That way we can ensure independence.
>
>
>
> 3. Under no circumstances, the ombudspersons should socialize and befriend
> community members ( this is a very obvious independence element, have you
> ever encountered the decision maker of your case at a social event talking
> and smiling at the party you filed a complaint against? It is written in
> first year legal text books that independence is very much affected by
> social encounters and interactions)
>
>
>
> I don't think the current recommendations are sufficient enough to expand
> the ombuds office mandate. But I do need written reasons for not considering
> the points I have made. It is simply not enough that the WS2 group on Ombuds
> did not agree with my comments.
>
>
>
>
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> Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org
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>
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