Dear All, Following on from the meeting today, please find hereunder the message that was sent by the SCI on 12 December 2012 to the GNSO Council concerning the issue of deferrals. Do note that in relation to consideration of PDP outputs, the GNSO Operating Procedures do specify a separate process for postponement, for example: "At the request of any Council member, for any reason, consideration of the Final Issue Report may be postponed by not more than one (1) meeting, provided that the Council member details the rationale for such a postponement. Consideration of the Final Issue Report may only be postponed for a total of one (1) meeting, even if multiple Council members request postponement". As also requested, you will find attached in a word document the current practice as outlined by Mary which was also part of the SCI request as adopted by the GNSO Council on 16 April 2015 (which has also been attached). As discussed during the meeting, you are encouraged to review this first document ahead of the next meeting and include any comments / edits / suggestions you may have. As a reminder, the GNSO Council framed its request to the SCI as follows: WHEREAS: 1. The SCI submitted to the GNSO Council on 05 March 2015 a Review Request that noted the following issue: * Although there is currently a rule regarding the deadline for timely submission of motions for voting by the GNSO Council (see Section 3.3 of the Operating Procedures), there is none regarding: * whether, how and by whom a properly submitted motion is to be seconded, and * Treatment of proposed amendments to such motions as either "friendly" or "unfriendly". * These have been supported by Council practice to date as opposed to operating procedural rules. RESOLVED: 1. The GNSO Council requests that the SCI codifies the existing customary practices of the GNSO Council (as described above). 2. If the SCI believes that the current practices are inappropriate, the SCI should convey its reasons for such belief to the Council and develop new processes to govern the seconding of motions and amendments to motions. 3. The GNSO Council suggests that in carrying out this task the SCI consult past GNSO Chairs and Councilors as well as commonly accepted guides and practices (such as Robert's Rules of Order) and other ICANN bodies (such as the Board and other SO/ACs). Best regards, Marika Deferral of Motions: The SCI was asked by the council to consider the current GNSO Council informal practice whereby a party may request the deferral of a motion to a later date in those situations where a formal process for a deferral is not specifically provided (for example, certain deferrals are foreseen as part of the GNSO PDP, see http://gnso.icann.org/council/annex-2-pdp-manual-16dec11-en.pdf). The SCI discussed this practice and whether there was a need to create a procedure to formalize this informal practice. After much debate, the SCI concluded that the current practice of allowing for the deferral of motions was done as a matter of courtesy at the discretion of the Chair of the GNSO Council. For this reason, the SCI concluded that there was no need to create a formal procedure at this time. However, the SCI felt that it was necessary to explicitly state that there is no rule that the Chair must always exercise his or her discretion in the affirmative or the negative. Given that the current informal practice is at the discretion of the Chair, the Chair can exercise that same discretion in considering whether to grant or deny any request and can also exercise his or her discretion when determining how to handle any specific situation that may occur with regard to this informal practice.