While I cannot speak to the legality of these actions, Affcom's demand that
we (Brazilian affiliates) meet with reported harassers was very troubling
to me. The fact that despite our agreement with that baffling condition no
actual mediation took place, Affcom refused to engage with communications,
and then issued false statements about this[1] is even more concerning.
[1]
Chico Venancio
2018-09-25 19:42 GMT-03:00 Paulo Santos Perneta <paulosperneta(a)gmail.com>om>:
Two illegal requests, to be more precise.
Last 18 May, the AffCom demanded (by mail) that the recently elected (15
April) WMPT board stopped acting as such. However, under the Portuguese
law, that board, which had been elected in a validated General Assembly,
was the only valid board of the association, and the one responsible to
fulfill the Association obligations with the Portuguese state. If they
doubted that, they should have requested legal advice, instead of taking
decisions over a subject they clearly did not understood.
Last 11 June, the AffCom demanded (by hangout meeting) that a new General
Assembly must be conveyed by what they called "a neutral party", namely the
former head of the table of the General Assembly elected in 2015. That too
is against the law. Under the Portuguese law, when there is a legally
elected board in functions, as was the case, it's the board (or the head of
the table of the General Assembly, in the name of the board) that conveys a
General Assembly (Article 173º of the Portuguese Civil Code). A General
Assembly cannot be called by some random person designed at will by some
external body. If the WMPT had headed the AffCom demands, the recent
General Assembly of 1 September (realized by AffCom imposition) would have
been illegal under the country law, being conveyed by a party that had not
any right to do that.
Concerning the alleged (by the AffCom) lack of validity of the 15 April
General Assembly, it was completely unfounded, as any lawyer knowledgeable
of the Portuguese law could explain to them. It was with that General
Assembly (and not with the one of 1 September, which was a mere imposition
of the AffCom, with almost no practical value) that WMPT submitted its tax
form (Modelo 22) for the 2017 fiscal year, updated the names of the legal
representatives of Wikimedia Portugal in the Revenue Services (Autoridade
Tributária - Tax Authority), as well as regularized the access to the
association bank account.
Paulo
Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> escreveu no dia terça, 25/09/2018 à(s) 22:01:
I don't want affiliates to get a free pass
to create problems or neglect
their responsibilities such as by failing to produce reports, misusing
trademarks, misappropriating funds, etc., and I am glad to see that
AffCom
is taking action when it thinks that there are
problems. However, I am
concerned that AffCom may currently have some internal issues that should
be addressed.
As far as I know, AffCom hasn't shared its explanations for some of these
actions in public, which places limits on the public's ability to
evaluate
AffCom's choices, but the actions being
described in this thread give me
cause for concern. Included in those concerns is the claim that AffCom
made
an illegal request of an affiliate. I would
expect AffCom to do legal
research (probably done by WMF Legal on Affcom's behalf) before making
requests. I would also expect that the WMF Board would ensure that AffCom
has access to any support that it needs, such as staff time from WMF
Legal.
Regarding whether a public warning letter from Affcom could lead to the
end
of an affiliate, I can understand how a warning
letter could concern
potential partner organizations, but given our choice of problems I think
that this is the lesser problem. I think that Affcom's actions, good and
bad, should be public in almost every case. If AffCom makes an error in
sending a warning letter, then hopefully the affiliate can explain the
situation to the partner organization. If a partner decides to
discontinue
a relationship, that may be regrettable
(especially if the warning letter
was erroneous) but hopefully the loss of a partnership would be a
temporary
setback from which the affiliate can recover.
I think that expecting perfection from anyone, whether AffCom or an
affiliate, would be expecting too much. Hopefully organizations and
people
can be "net positives" and can be
engaged in continuous learning and
continuous self-improvement.
One theme that is common to AffCom and affiliate boards is that they are
primarily composed of people who are volunteering their time. My
impression
is that this often correlates with a mixed level
of quality and
dedication
from the participants. Improving the quality of
governance in general is
an
interest of mine, and I would be interested to
hear others' thoughts
about
how to do that, keeping in mind that many of
these people are generously
volunteering their limited time.
Pine
(
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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