SRCF: Term Limits Amendment

SRCF: Term Limits Amendment

A draft constitutional amendment establishing limited terms for SRCF officials

This is a draft text of an amendment for the SRCF constitution which would establish term limits for sysadmins and other officials. The language is mildly legalistic but is pretty clear and concise.

  • Appointments by the Committee would be time-limited; appointments by resolution in general meeting need not be
  • The third paragraph makes reference to "this amendment", but it's likely that the fourth paragraph might be passed as a separate amendment
  • The actual policy on the maximum time a Committee can appoint for is not something I'm at all committed to, and should be voted on separately
  • The first paragraph requires that the Committee specify a date; it follows that the Committee can not appoint someone for a term which is relative to a date which is not fixed, such as "two weeks past whatever the date of the next AGM happens to be". The clause setting out the maximum appointing powers of the Committee should take this into account; fourteen months past the previous AGM is a better maximum than two months past the next AGM, as it's a determinate day.
  • If the SRCF Constitution is to be amended, the First Amendment should be to protect members against spurious takedown requests rather than something boring and structural like this

Draft Appointments Amendment

All officials of the Society shall serve for a limited and definite period of time. The Committee, and any persons co-opted onto it, shall retire, and the new Committee take office, at the closure of each AGM. Any other individual serving as an official, including the system administrators, Membership Secretary and webmaster, shall retire on a date specified by the Committee, and the retirement dates of all such officials shall be published on the website. Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed as prejudicing the Committee's discretion to reduce or extend terms of appointment, or to remove or reappoint an individual.

Only members of the Society shall be appointed as officials, and only duly appointed officials shall act on its behalf. No person other than a system administrator shall exercise root privileges on the Society's facilities. In an emergency, the Chairman shall have power to appoint members of the Society other than himself as system administrators, for terms not exceeding seventy-two hours.

All officials in office at the time of adoption of this amendment shall be treated as though they had been appointed by the Committee on the date of adoption for the maximum period permitted under its terms.

The Committee shall not have power to appoint an official for a period extending more than ten weeks after the next AGM.