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

[Tapani Tarvainen]

Dear Rafik,

Thank you for this.

When you say you consider the case closed I presume you don't mean we
should not discuss it anymore, but that the process with Ombudsman
is closed. As you may recall, discussion on the list was effectively
suspended when Peter announced he'd turn to the Ombudsman, as people
wanted to wait for what'd come out of it.

So I take your statement to the membership to be a discussion opening.

Indeed now that enough time has passed and the acute situation is over,
it is a good time to continue the discussion, analyze what went wrong
and what could and should have been done to avoid it.

Of course Monday morning quarterbacks have it easy, things may be
obvious in hindsight that were really hard to see at the time.
So we should not try to assign blame or accuse anyone - but nor
should we just bury this because it might reveal things that are
embarrassing to some.

Unfortunately I'm just about now going on vacation and will be mostly
offline until end of this week, but I'll get back to this when I return.

Thank you again,

Tapani


On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 08:29:28AM +0900, Rafik Dammak (rafik.dammak at gmail.com) wrote:

> 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