Reconstitution of the Hearings CommitteeBy the end of March 2002, we will have had the third gathering of the national Hearings Committee in as many years. A once-rare procedure has now started to become almost routine. It's not for me to comment on this apparent increase in litigiousness among our leaders, nor on the relative validity of any of the specific charges. What I would like to do here is to take a moment to focus on the process by which we put the Hearings Committee together, since— if we're going to continue to utilize this process as frequently as we currently are — we had better make sure that we're doing it right.
The common rationale for selecting past Chairmen to serve on the Hearings Committee is that they are presumed to have already finished climbing the political ladder, and so would have nothing more to gain or lose politically by adjudicating a hearing, and coming back with a fair verdict. A fundamental flaw in this reasoning is that many of these past Chairmen will still be serving on the AMC in that very capacity, and/or as current officers on the International level, so they are still politically active. Even if they've completely `retired' from active political duty, though, it is yet very likely (and we can all see examples among the current real-life players) that they will have developed personal alliances and animosities along the way, which could easily prejudice their conduct in a hearing. Besides this, the designated order of succession includes officers who are still `on the ladder,' so they're not subject to even the basic rationale that's supposed to guarantee impartiality! I see two good alternatives for how to constitute the Hearings Committee, and I offer both of them here for your consideration: One alternative is to rely on former Ombudsmen. These are people who were selected specifically for their ability to be fair and impartial, for their knowledge of our rules and procedures and any applicable laws, and for their desire not to be actively involved in the political arena. Further, an Ombudsman's duties (under Article VIII (3) of the AML Bylaws) include that he/she "may express opinions, settle disputes, render substantial justice, and promote the general welfare of American Mensa," which is fundamentally similar to what we expect the Hearings Committee to do. The main problem with this
approach is the limited number of available past national Ombudsmen. To The other alternative that
I'm considering is to have the accused and the named complainant put If you concur that either of these approaches is better than what we're doing now, then I ask that you please express that opinion on the M-Grapevine list (by a proxy, if you prefer not to be a member of that list yourself) or through Going Forward. If there's enough sentiment in favor of a particular change, then I would be happy to work with whoever is interested to put together a specific Bylaws amendment that could be put before the AML membership for ratification. That way, we can see a little less politicking — and a little more justice. — Jonathan Elliott
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According
to Article IX (5) of the AML Bylaws, the Hearings Committee is to comprise
the three most recent Past Chairmen, unless one or more of them be unavailable
or incapacitated, in which case the Bylaws provide an order of succession
among past First Vice-Chairmen, past Second Vice-Chairmen, and past Secretaries.
I claim that this process is inherently flawed, for multiple reasons:
supplement
the pool, we would probably need to use former Ombudsmen of local chapters.
We have several choices as to selection method, either by negotiation,
by random draw, by length of Mensa membership, by length of service as
an Ombudsman, etc. We could work out the details of the process later,
if we're agreed on the basic concept that former Ombudsmen would generally
be better qualified than past AMCers.
together
separate lists of all the individuals (past Chairmen or not, past Ombudsmen
or not, whatever) whom they would each accept as members of the hearing
panel, ranked in order of acceptability. Then, the three (or some other
number of) persons whose names appear in the highest ranks of both lists
(i.e., those persons with the lowest sums of the individual ranking numbers)
are installed. Both parties are as content as they could ever be, we're
not limited in our pool of candidates (except by the number of members
that we have in the whole organization), and the process is clean and objective.