[NCUC-DISCUSS] Statement from the former NCUC Executive Committee

[Rafik Dammak]

The former NCUC Executive Committee is sending this statement to clarify
its actions regarding former EC member Peter Green.

To the NCUC Membership,

Many of you are aware that in August 2016 the NCUC Executive Committee (now
the former EC) asked Peter Green (Zuan Zhang) to resign from the EC. The
view of all EC members other than Peter was then, and still is, that
Peter’s active engagement in the work of the Registry Stakeholder Group,
coupled with his employee status at a major registry (CONAC), made it
inappropriate for him to be in a leadership position in the Noncommercial
Users Constituency. This decision was based on our understanding of the
NCUC and NCSG eligibility requirements and GNSO Operating procedures. It
has been a longstanding principle of our constituency that people or
organizations that are members of another Stakeholder Group in the GNSO
cannot also be members of NCUC (bylaws III.3). This is designed to prevent
commercial or contracted parties from attempting to control or influence
our Constituency, which is supposed to be solely devoted to the interests
of noncommercial users.

Peter was unhappy with the EC’s procedure and with the outcome. Peter
declined to discuss the issue with the EC, however, and instead took the
case to the Ombudsman, Mr. Herb Waye. Since then we have had several
detailed exchanges of information with the Ombudsman. In his first draft
report Mr. Waye, while demanding reinstatement of Green, concluded that our
action was based on a reasonable interpretation of the NCUC charter and the
GNSO Guidelines but that the charter and guidelines as written could be
easily interpreted otherwise. Ultimately, we learned from Mr. Waye that
Peter’s main concern was that he felt the process was not legitimate or
transparant and he also feared that it would negatively affect his
reputation. The NCUC EC acknowledged these concerns as legitimate. At a
meeting at ICANN 57 with two members of the EC and the Ombudsman, the EC
agreed to address these concerns with this statement. This statement is the
outcome of that meeting. During the past couple of months Peter had the
chance to comment on the statement and modify it. We did not agree with the
final modifications and additions we received from Ombudsman. Hence we have
decided to release our original statement.

*Statement*

First, the EC wishes to make it abundantly clear that our request for Peter
to resign from the EC was not caused by any misconduct or poor performance
on his part. As we said in our August 7, 2016 announcement to the
constituency, Peter was asked to resign only because continuing to allow a
contradiction with our membership eligibility rules would open the door to
many other ineligible members and the potential for corruption of NCUC’s
integrity as a stakeholder group. Aside from his failure to fully
understand the conflict of interest, which led to his failure to be fully
transparent about it, Peter did nothing wrong.

Second, we openly acknowledge that the situation could have been handled
better. Although we still believe the action was necessary and justified,
there was no precedent in NCUC’s history for the EC to draw upon. The NCUC
bylaws had clear eligibility rules, which we, as the EC, interpreted
Peter’s status to contradict, but its bylaws did not have a defined
procedure for removing people in positions if they are determined to be
ineligible. Furthermore, the EC members did not want to publicly raise this
issue before the membership, as that could have been construed as an
intimidating public attack on Peter. This led to concerns about
transparency. In the end, we opted to ask him to resign. But this came as
such a shock to Peter that it led to a complete breakdown in
communications. We apologize for that and wish that it could have been
dealt with in a face to face meeting.

Third, based on this experience, we are modifying the NCUC bylaws to clear
up any remaining ambiguities in our eligibility requirements, and to
provide clearer procedures for the EC to handle situations when a member’s
or officer’s eligibility changes. We think this will help us to avoid the
kind of problems and misunderstandings we had in this case.

With the issuance of this statement, we consider this case to be closed.
Our main concern has always been the integrity of the NCUC, and we think
that point has been made. We hope that this statement addresses Peter’s
concerns about the procedure. We understand from the Ombudsman that Peter
has no interest in returning to the NCUC or its EC.

Rafik Dammak
Milton Mueller
Farzaneh Badii
Joao Carlos Caribe
Grace Githaiga
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