Vorstand - Comité PPS

Statuten PPI:
http://int.piratenpartei.de/Statutes/2011-03-12_Statutes_after_first_amendement

Urteil:

Court of Arbitration ruling n°2011-1, December the 9th

The Pirate Party International Court of Arbitration has taken an
own-intended decision to decide of the validity of various points of the
procedure of the November 22th "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement
by the PPI board, and the following referendum, after various
observations were made about potential breach of the statutes, including
by the Pirate Party of Germany.

The Court of Arbitration has stated that it had the exclusive power to
declare the vacancy of the PPI board seat of Finlay Archibald, so the
PPI board statement was irregular. The Court has also confirmed that the
PPI board cannot appoint successors without breaching the Statutes, and
therefore declared invalid option 1.b) of the referendum.

The Court reminded that an online voting system for PPI votes such as an
online General Assembly is possible without breaching the Statutes or
contradicting the pirate movement core values. The Court has also
confirmed the vacancy of both seats at the moment of the PPI statement
and referendum, and then ruled that the irregularities and Statutes
breaching were not significant enough to make the referendum invalid.

Eventually the Court of Arbitration declared irregular the PPI board
statement and invalid the choice 1.b) of the referendum, but validated
the rest of the procedure and the referendum result. This decision comes
into effect immediately.

• Court of Arbitration ruling n°2011-1, December the 9th **

-> PPI board "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement of November 22nd
and PPI board vacant seats referendum of November 22nd-29th.

THE PIRATE PARTY INTERNATIONAL COURT OF ARBITRATION,

Given the PPI Statutes,

Given the November 22th "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement by the
PPI board,

Given the November 22nd-29th referendum by the PPI board,

Given the observations made by Pirate Party of Germany on November 29th,

Given the own-intended decision of the Court of Arbitration to decide of
the validity of various points of the procedure.

- ABOUT NOVEMBER 22th "VACANT SEATS IN THE PPI BOARD" STATEMENT BY THE
PPI BOARD

1) Considering Paul Da Silva has resigned from being a PPI board member
on May 2, 2011.

2) Considering Finlay Archibald has not come for a long time to PPI
board meetings, nor answered to any attempts to contact him.

3) Considering paragraph XIII. (8) of the PPI Statutes handles PPI board
seats vacancy for both cases : "A Board member may resign at any moment.
After resignation, death, long term disease or other situation in which
a Member of the Board does not execute his functions for more than three
months, his seat becomes vacant."

4) Considering PPI board has stated the loss of Finlay Archibald's PPI
board membership on November 22th.

5) Considering neither Paul Da Silva, Finlay Archibald, or their PPI
Member of origin has contested the November 22th statement.

6) Considering the Court of Arbitration has decided on its own
initiative to study the validity of the November 22th statement.

7) Considering paragraph XIVa. of the PPI Statutes, defining the Court
of Arbitration powers, imply that the Court of Arbitration shall
pronounce the PPI board seats vacancy if it can cause dispute, complains
or Statutes breach.

8) Considering that the PPI board could therefore announce the vacancy
of Paul Da Silva PPI board seat, as his resignation was clear and cannot
be contested.

9) Considering that, on the contrary, the PPI board shall not have
decided the vacancy of Finlay Archibald PPI board seat, as it is subject
to interpretation and this ruling is subject to dissent ; which means
that the Court of Arbitration had the exclusive power to decide about
it, and that therefore the November 22th statement by the PPI board was
not regular.

10) Considering that the Court of Arbitration confirms both Paul Da
Silva and Finlay Archibald's PPI board seats vacancy at the time of the
statement, with the result that the PPI board statement irregularity
does not make the following referendum invalid.

- ABOUT NOVEMBER 22nd-29th REFERENDUM VALIDITY

11) Considering Pirate Party of Germany has issued doubts, about the
validity of the PPI board nominating additional board members option,
and on electronic voting.

12) Considering the Court of Arbitration has decided on its own
initiative to decide on the validity of such claims.

13) Considering Statutes Amendment Proposal 3 to the PPI Statutes,
adopted during the 2011 PPI General Assembly in Friedrichshafen, removed
the following sentence : "In case of vacancy a substitute may be
appointed by the Board until the next General Assembly."

14) Considering no part of the actual Statutes allows appointments by
the board.

15) Considering paragraph XII. (4) of the PPI Statutes states that the
Board "is elected by the General Assembly at the regular sessions or if
an extraordinary session is requested for that purpose."

16) Considering that, in consequence, choice 1.b of the PPI board vacant
seats referendum would constitute a breach of the statutes.

17) Considering that only one PPI member had voted choice 1.b.

18) Considering that, following the claim of invalidity of this vote,
this PPI member has asked to change his vote to another option.

19) Considering the Court of Arbitration has accepted this demand.

20) Considering there is therefore no voters for proposition 1.b and
therefore no further measures have to be taken.

21) Considering that no procedure of electronic voting that guarantee,
at the same time, anonymity and secrecy of the vote, and integrity and
equality, has been proposed to the PPI.

22) Considering that the use of electronic voting, and in particular any
electronic voting machine, therefore implies to sacrifice either a part
of secrecy or a part of integrity.

23) Considering that giving up voting integrity, like it is the case for
all known electronic voting systems with full secrecy of the vote, would
therefore be in contradiction with the pirate movement core values.

24) Considering that giving up secrecy of the vote, depending on the
context, can be either in contradiction with the pirate movement core
values or not.

25) Considering that full equality of information is not reachable in
practice, and therefore only a level of highness of equality can be
appreciated.

26) Considering the remote voting procedure announced by the PPI board
will be a public ballot procedure, and therefore ensures full integrity
of the vote in exchange of giving up secrecy.

27) Considering the voters are not citizens, but PPI members, which
means public organizations, and that therefore they have in general a
duty to make their decisions as transparent as possible to their
members, and are less subject to intimidation or threat.

28) Considering that this implies that the publication of the vote of
PPI members in a partial board election would therefore not breach the
pirate movement core values, while it would be the case for the vote of
citizens.

29) Considering the PPI board stated that the vote of each PPI member
for the current election shall be kept secret by the Court of
Arbitration until the deadline for the votes, which would give a
reasonable level of equality to an asynchronous General Assembly.

30) Considering a synchronous General Assembly, which means an online
meeting session, could -- provided it respects the Statutes -- give
similar chances to any PPI member to change his vote until the General
Assembly agrees on the decision, which gives a reasonable level of
equality to a synchronous General Assembly.

31) Considering that it results from the above that an online General
Assembly would not by itself breach the Statutes.

S T A T E S

Article 1) November 22th "vacant seats in the PPI board" statement by
the PPI board is irregular, but with the reserve expressed at
considering 10 the two seats vacancy is confirmed.

Article 2) November 22nd-29th PPI board referendum's choice 1.b of the
PPI board vacant seats referendum is contrary to the PPI Statutes and
therefore invalid.

Article 3) With the reserve expressed at considerings 20, 29 and 30, the
rest of the referendum is valid in regard of the Statutes.

Article 4) The current decision will be published on the PPI website.

Deliberate by the Pirate Party International Court of Arbitration on
December 9th of 2011, attended by the followings : Sven Clement, Marco
Confalonieri, Arturo Martínez and Maxime Rouquet.

Mail PPDE:

Dear Board of the Pirate Party International,
Dear Boards of the international Pirate Parties,

on the 22th of November the board of the PPI called for a postal
referendum regarding the vacant seats in the PPI board. In this
referendum two questions have been asked, each with three options
given.

Regarding question one: The Pirate Party Germany dismisses ALL options.
This vote and the following proposition have been approved by an
unanimous acclamation of the board of the Pirate Party Germany.

Regarding option A: A purely online general assembly is not acceptable
to the Pirate Party Germany. The Pirate Party Germany strongly opposes
the usage of electronic voting machines. An electronic voting machine
can
never fulfill all critical requirements for a real democratic vote
(secrecy/anonymity, integrity, equality) at once. In addition
sub-requirements (e.g. unavailability of prior knowledge regarding
existing votes to any participant) may not be fulfilled without a
complicated secrecy-sheme.
As the Pirate Party Germany opposes the usage of electronic voting
machines, we cannot and we must not support the usage of any such sheme
in the Pirate Party International.

Regarding option B: An appointment made by the Board cannot fullfill
the
requirements of grassroot democratic organizations. One of the major
goals of the Pirate Party Germany is to change the style of politics
and
to enable a larger and more direct partizipation of citizens and party
members in democratic processes. Thus we cannot and we must not support
a board to appoint its own members. In addition we believe that the
Statutes of the PPI do not allow an appointment of board members (see
section XII.4).

Thus Option C would be the only valid option. In contrast we propose,
that the Pirate Party International should prepare and held its next
real General Assembly as soon as possible.

The Pirate Party Germany would be prepared to host this assembly. But
we
would strongly favor a General Assembly outside of Europe (e.g. in
Africa to show support for the new democratic movements).

Regarding question 2: We would prefer a real General Assembly.

Kind regards,

Sebastian Nerz
- Federal Chairman Pirate Party Germany -