Dear Malcolm Tks again I hope/ wish it would as simple as you mentioned, However, it is dangerous to delegate all such authority to one person. In case of more than one , how decision will be made . In case of majority , would the community be able to dismiss all even the minority one? In the interval between meeting how community will act? Kavouss Sent from my iPhone
On 24 May 2015, at 12:17, Malcolm Hutty <malcolm@linx.net> wrote:
On 24/05/2015 09:29, Kavouss Arasteh wrote: Dear Malcolm What are those terns and conditions as well as applicable rules?
The SOACs make their own rules. Unless a SOAC creates a rule to the contrary, a chair can be dismissed at will be a SOAC. This makes them completely accountable to the SOAC.
That said, I think worrying about the misuse of the power of membership is misplaced.
As I understand it, the only powers that members have are i) to go to court alleging that ICANN has not followed its own Bylaws; and ii) to inspect a few formal documents that the company is required to have by law.
Is there anything else of which I'm unaware?
I can't see any reason to worry about excessive or inappropriate use of such powers. Courts are familiar with frivolous litigation, and prepared to suppress and sanction it - nor could we immunise ICANN against being sued by anybody in the world on other grounds, even if we tried.
If this is not a worry, and if there are no other relevant powers of which I'm unaware, there is an even simpler option that perhaps we should consider: that the members of ICANN can be anybody in the world who applies to become a member.
This would resolve one of the problems with having part of "the community" as members: that they may decline to go to court when they ought to.
Personally, I think that Chris' scenario of a member going to court to try to force ICANN to act in a way the Board deems to be outside ICANN's powers is pretty fanciful. Such a lawsuit would be doomed to failure: no court will order a corporation to act in a particular way merely because a member asks it, even if the corporation had erred in believing itself precluded from acting in that way.
But a much more realistic scenario is that of a member going to court to restrain the ICANN from acting in a way the Board consider within ICANN's powers, but that the member considers outside scope. A court could rule on whether a given action is outside a corporation's powers, and if it finds that it is, order the corporation to desist.
However, there is a problem: if the Board is acting outside ICANN's scope, quite likely this will not be a rogue Board acting in defiance of the community, but rather a Board acting with the full support of the SOACs: a "rogue community" asking ICANN to act outside its proper scope. Who then is to restrain them?
Having a broad membership would address this problem. So I ask this group, what (if any) problems might be caused by such an option?
Malcolm.
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