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Chairs

The function of the Chairs is to protect individual rights, to eliminate corruption, to ensure that proper procedure is followed, to eliminate unnecessary secrecy, and to temper "procedural bugs" by the application of individual judgement.

The existence of Chairs does not excuse other parts of the organization from the responsibility to have internal controls.

Number of Chairs

There is always at least one Chair position.

A second and third Chair position are added when the group reaches Size Regime Large. However, only one of these position is filled at each election; so, for a little while, the third Chair position will necessarily be vacant.

Powers held by each Chair individually

Information request from the organization and from high officials

Each Chair has the power to request any information from any part of the organization, or any information relevant to the organization from high officials. Such a request for information must be met immediately (or, if fulfilling the request takes time, as soon as physically possible) and cannot be denied for any reason. In particular, no information may be kept secret from a Chair, except for personal passwords, and that only to the extent that the information is also kept secret from everyone else, including the CEO and EEO.

Each Chair may attend (or, if attendance is not possible, then prior to the meeting, request a video feed from) and quietly observe (but not necessarily participate in) any meeting in which the organization's business is being conducted. This is a form of a request for information.

When a Chair compels information, the information must be supplied along with a signed oath that it is the truth.

Dispute another's information request

Each Chair has the power to take another Chair to court on the charge of making a request for information which imposes an excessive burden. A request is defined to impose an excessive burden if the burden of collecting and providing the information is (a) large, forcing the organization to significantly curtail important activities in order to divert its labor to fulfilling the request, and also (b) unreasonable, and also (c) in excess of the amount of information needed to reasonably ensure the non-corruption and procedure-following of government, or to make a case in court. In no case shall adverse effects thought to be caused by the release of information be taken as evidence for the excessiveness of a request. In no case shall an information request be considered to be "large" based on the nature of the information, rather than because of the large amount of labor required to compile it. In no case shall an information request be said to be "excessive" if it could be satisfied with less than 100 manhours of labor, although much larger requests are typically not excessive either.

Any official who does not comply with a Chair's request for information shall be permanently stripped of their position, possibly in addition to other sanctions as specified by statue.

Note that, because of (c), by saying something is excessive, the court is stating that the additional information gained will be irrelevant to the Chair's success in court, if they were going to use this information to go to court. So, if a Chair does go to court, the court must act as if the information gained was as would be favorable to the Chair's case, within reason.

If the court finds that the request for information was excessive, the only penalty shall be the nullification of that request and of future similar requests by the same Chair, if ordered by the court. In particular, the right to publish any information obtained is not affected. In no case shall a Chair be punished for the exercise of, or the results of exercising, their powers.

Information request from other entities

In addition, each Chair may request some information from or about entities, such as members, which have close relations with the organization or its officials, in proportion to the closeness and, in the case of entities which are close to officials, to the power of the officials. This type of request may be challenged in court before being complied with.

In addition, each Chair may request any information from or about any private entity if there is probable cause to believe that the information is related to an action or conspiracy by the organization or by officials of the organization relating to an attempt to deprive individuals of their rights, or to not follow procedure, or which may be corrupt. A court must find probable cause before this type of request may be issued. This type of request may be challenged in court before being complied with.

Publication

Each Chair has the power to publish any information, even information which was previously declared secret or private, and information which according to Bylaws and Statues may not be published. No Chair shall be hindered from or punished for the publication of any information. Chairs are never obligated to pre-notify any entity before publication. Publication implies that any rule by which the group kept the information secret from its membership no longer applies to that information, and therefore that information may be republished without penalty.

The information must be published in any manner which makes it available to the general membership of the group, not just to a few select individuals. Each Chair must make available a list of information which they have published, and where to find each publication. Published information must be kept available for at least one year, at the expense of the Organization. Before they have decided which information to publish, Chairs may reveal any information to their staff. Before publication, they may reveal any information to select individuals and entities if useful to arrange for publication.

Rather than publish information to the membership, Chairs may choose to publish it to the Combined Board, and must be provided with a venue for doing so. Chairs may not be compelled to publish information to the Combined Board instead of the membership.

Prosecution

Each Chair has the power and the standing to bring any case against any entity alleging corruption, failure to follow procedure, dereliction of duty of an official, or infringement of individual rights, provided these crimes are with reference to the organization.

An entity may be corrupt in their participation in some other organization, or involved in causing another organization to infringe or not to follow proper procedure, or guilty of a serious felony not covered in the previous paragraph, without being vulnerable to tribunal prosecution.

Powers held by jointly by multiple Chairs

Any two Chairs, acting together, may pardon or commute the sentence of any individual (excepting high officials) for a crime or crimes.

Special roles of individual Chairs

When there are multiple Chair positions, some of them have special duties and powers, described in the following. These are in addition to their ordinary powers, described above. When there is only one Chair, he or she holds all of these powers. When there are only two Chairs, the senior one holds the powers described below for the senior Chair, and the junior one holds the powers described below for the middle Chair.

The middle Chair may accept complaints from individuals and entities and attempt to mediate between the complaintant and the organization. When there are three Chairs, the juniormost and seniormost Chair are forbidden from accepting complaints and attempting to resolve individual complaints through mediation; although they may accept tips and advice about situations in need of attention, and following this, to use their powers to investigate, publicize, and prosecute if they determine that doing so is for the good of all (not just for the good of a complaintant).

The seniormost Chair is the highest ranking official, and is the head of the organization. Any ceremonial functions which require a high-ranking official representative should be carried out by the senior Chair. The senior Chair may address messages to the voters and/or to the legislative houses, at the expense of the organization.

When an act is enacted and there are Parliamentarians or Judges, it is sent to the senior Chair to receive his or her signature, and the act is not considered official until he or she has signed it. The senior Chair may issue a signing statement as he or she signs the act, which must be published along with the act, although it carries no legal force.

Rather than signing it, the senior Chair may refer the act to the High Court for a test of its legality. If the act is found to be legal, it is returned to the senior Chair.

The senior Chair may refuse to sign an act, as an expression of his or her belief that it is immoral or dangerous. If the senior Chair will not sign or refer the act within three days of receiving it, or within three days of its being found legal after his or her referral, or if he or she is incapacitated, then a Parliamentarian or Judge must sign it in his place (signing as a Parliamentarian or Judge, not with as the senior Chair), thereby making it official, just as if the Chair had signed it him or herself. In this case the Parliamentarians and Judges are compelled to sign; unlike the Chair, they may not refuse to sign.

Decorations, awards, and titles of honor may be created and bestowed by the senior Chair on entities, provided that the senior Chair and his or her staff, and not the legislature, decides who is to be honored.

The middle and senior Chairs may not be forced to fill any of their special roles, and may not be punished for refusing to. They have full control over the manner of their fulfillment of these roles; for instance, the senior Chair may insist that he or she be allowed to promulgate acts with minimal ceremony and maximal efficiency.

Selection of Chairs

The Chairs are directly elected by the voters by reweighted Score Voting. The necessary and sufficient condition for any elgible voter to be included on the ballot is self-nomination. Self-nominations may be withdrawn. The Office of Procedure shall announce the self-nominations as they come in.

Each electoral cycle, at the same time as the election of the elect board, one Chair position is up for election. After the election of a new Chair, when there are three Chairs, the previously senior Chair steps down, the previously middle Chair becomes senior, and the previously junior Chair becomes the senior Chair. Hence, when there are multiple Chairs, each Chair is elected for a term of multiple electoral cycles.

Delegation

Chairs may delegate any role or decision to staff (including but not limited to requesting and reviewing information, publication, observing meetings, chairing meetings, maintaining the Forum, prosecution, arbitrarion, mediation, hearing cases).

Parliamentarian and Judge

In Small and Medium groups, and Large groups with less than 3 Parliamentarians or less than 3 Judges, Chairs also fill the functions of Parliamentarians and/or Judges.

Decisions of the Chair regarding the running of a Board meeting may be overturned by a 5/7 vote of that Board.

Like Parliamentarians, Chairs may not vote in the meetings that they run. Unlike Parliamentarians, Chairs may participate in substantive discussion, like other participants in the meeting.