I'm sorry Kirill, but I fail to see how that would be a display of bad
faith. If I remember correctly an Affcom member did send a notice to the
WMPT list and members (including Paulo) did state that an impossibility to
act as representatives of Wikimedia Portugal would have terrible
consequences for the affiliate.
Regardless of what was stated or warned about the consequences of Affcom's
request, what is it you are stating now?
It is demonstrable Affcom requested all refrain to act in name of Wikimedia
Portugal.
Are you saying that request did not hold for legal fillings in name of
Wikimedia Portugal? And that Affcom unambiguously conveyed to Paulo and the
rest of Wikimedia Portugal that Wikimedia Portugal members were free to
represent it in legal fillings?
Without affirmative responses to both questions I fail how you could
possibly infer bad faith from Paulo.
Seeing the numerous false or contradictory statements and several failures
stemming from Affcom's actions or lack thereof we would be justified to
infer bad faith from its members, nonetheless we choose to see these as
errors from humans on a voluntary role acting in good faith.
Best regards,
Chico Venancio
Em ter, 25 de set de 2018 20:51, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com>
escreveu:
Paulo,
The email that the Affiliations Committee sent to you -- among various
others -- on May 18 read as follows:
Dear members of Wikimedia Portugal,
The recent developments in your chapter have been
brought to our
attention
by a number of members of the chapter, as well as
members of the
community.
We are monitoring the situation and in the
meantime, would like to
request
all members of the chapter to cease from taking
part in this conflict and
to work to resolve differences. You may also officially request a
conversation with this committee to discuss a potential mediation plan,
which we are more than happy to help with. In the case of no interest in
resolving your differences and moving forward, this committee may
consider
the de-recognition of WMPT, having taken into
account also the low
activity
> of the group, based on the the reports submitted.
In addition to this, we request that all
communications regarding he
present situation be routed directly to the AffCom discussion list (
affcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org) rather than various personal communications
channels. Please also, refrain from presenting oneself as representative
of
> Wikimedia Portugal until this situation is resolved.
Do not hesitate contacting this committee if you
have further questions.
The request concerning "presenting oneself as representative of Wikimedia
Portugal" was in reference to people stating that they were the official
representatives of the chapter in meetings -- a fact of which you were
doubtless well aware, seeing as it was your own complaint on the subject
which prompted the committee's request in the first place.
At no time did you -- or any of your colleagues -- indicate that you were
interpreting the request as having anything to do with the execution of the
legal functions of the board, the filing of financial statements with tax
authorities, or anything of the sort. Rather, you had responded with
questions as to how you might present yourselves to your current and
potential partners.
For you to now insist that the committee's request was a demand that you
violate Portuguese law -- an interpretation that you somehow neglected to
mention to anyone at the time -- is a remarkable and brazen display of bad
faith.
Regards,
Kirill
On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 6:42 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulosperneta(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> 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 )
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>