When Not Permitted
Rules which embody fundamental principles of parliamentary law and rules protecting absentees or a basic right of the individual cannot be suspended, even by unanimous vote. Thus, it would be illegal to suspend the rules to allow non-members to vote; to authorize absentee or cumulative voting; to waive the requirement of a quorum; or to waive the requirement for previous notice for a bylaws amendment. Moreover, the rules cannot be suspended to take away a particular member's right to attend meetings, make motions, speak in debate, and vote; these can only be curtailed through disciplinary procedures.
Three of the major parliamentary authorities - Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure, and Demeter's Manual - agree that provisions in the bylaws that do not relate to parliamentary procedure may not be suspended. Demeter notes how this plays into the reality of parliamentary situations:
| “ | Bylaws cannot be suspended even by unanimous vote. But sometimes circumstances, expediency or strong assembly determination in behalf of a cause or proposition make violations necessary. In all such cases of violations, the action taken is illegal per se; but if no one objects at the time, or never challenges it at any time thereafter, a violation never challenged is never a violation. | ” |
Similarly, Mason states:
| “ | It has been held that public bodies can adopt rules, even by majority vote, that cannot be suspended or amended without a two-thirds vote, but it is also held by the courts that actions, taken in violation of procedural rules of parliamentary law and of adopted rules, are valid nevertheless, since failure to conform to the rules of this class suspended them by implication. | ” |
The action is still illegal if it violated a mandatory constitutional provision, since a legislature cannot suspend the constitution.
Read more about this topic: Suspend The Rules
Famous quotes containing the word permitted:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)