Proxy

[Andreas Oberritter]

On 14.10.2011 08:34, Anders Darander wrote:
> * Denys Dmytriyenko <denis at denix.org> [111013 20:01]:
>> On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 02:54:49PM +0100, Phil Blundell wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2011-10-13 at 14:44 +0100, Richard Purdie wrote:
>>>> So I'd suggest two tweaks:
> 
>>>> a) Include internet voting for the 24 months inactivity period.
>>>> b) Increase the proxy votes per person to 3 (or 4?).
> 
> This sounds good to me too.
> 
>>> Sounds good to me.  I will instruct my proxy to vote in favour of such a
>>> motion if it is presented at the GA. :-)
> 
>> Looks like those are quite decent proposals - I'd like to add them to the GA 
>> agenda. While the number of proxies per person is already on the agenda, I 
>> think there should be a more generic discussion/voting for clarifying GA 
>> specifics, such as quorum, inactivity period, physical attendance/voting etc.
> 
> Even though I think that most (all?) people have been positive on the
> two tweaks above, a discussion is always good. (Although we're having
> one here, and the GA should (as I understand it) be a more formal thing
> as required by an eV). 
> 
> Could anyone form Germany comment on wether all of this is completely up
> to us to decide, or wether there are some general requirements on an eV
> when it comes to quorom etc.?

FWIW, there's an official English translation of the German Civil Code
[1]. Title 2, subtitle 1, chapters 1 (common laws for associations) and
2 (e.V. laws) are the relevant laws. Sections 32, 33, 36, 38, 71 seem to
be the most relevant parts for the current discussion.

What I have understood from reading the sections is:

- All members need to get informed about the topics to be decided on,
when the GA gets announced. For a resolutions to pass, more than 50% of
the cast ballots must vote for it (§32.1).
- Resolutions may pass without the need of a GA, if all members state
their agreement in written form (§32.2).
- To change by-laws, 75% of all members must agree. Unavailable members
need to declare their agreement in written form (§33). In other words,
unavailable members without written agreement count as disagreements.
- The GA's interval is defined by the by-laws. It's not a requirement of
German law to have a GA once per year (§36).
- You're not allowed to transfer voting rights to other persons (§38).
This may render our "proxy instructions" useless. I think it is required
to have written statements for each topic to be decided on. That's
probably the reason why the topics must be announced in prior to the GA.
- Changes to by-laws don't take effect immediately, but only after they
have been entered in the register of associations (§71).

- There's no indication whether a GA must happen face-to-face. It might
be sufficient to have a GA on IRC, combined with an online voting mechanism.
- There's no such concept of active and inactive members. I question
whether it's allowed to withdraw someone's voting rights without
excluding him or her from the e.V.

Regards,
Andreas

[1]: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/