27th CoNGO General Assembly
November 29, 30, December 1, 2021
To: Delegates to the 27th CoNGO General Assembly
From: Liberato C. Bautista, CoNGO President, on behalf of the CoNGO Board
Date: October 9, 2021
Subj: The CoNGO Board became increasingly cognizant of the use of electronic means of meeting, including virtual and hybrid forms, from the onset and on to the height of the CoVID-19 pandemic. The CoNGO Board members, meeting on April 15-16, 2021, raised the possibility of a hybrid meeting at the General Assembly and has therefore instructed the officers to work on a language to be brought to the October 8, 2021 Board meeting. The Board submits the following two motions for approval.
Motion 1:
“To add the following sentence to Rule 6: ‘Electronic means of participation, including for voting, shall be made available at the meeting location.’”
Rationale: For CoNGO Board meetings, the Rules already stipulate that electronic means of participation shall be made available at the meeting location. However this was not written in for Assembly meetings. While it is true that Swiss jurisprudence allows that whatever is not prohibited is permitted, the Board felt it prudent to include the provision for electronic participation also for the General Assembly. For additional
prudence, this Amendment will be voted on at the opening of the Assembly.
Motion 2:
To amend CoNGO Rule 49 to reduce from 9 members to 5 members the composition of the General Assembly Resolutions Committee”.
Rationale: CoNGO Rule 49 provides for a General Assembly Resolutions Committee consisting of nine persons. The Board proposes to amend that figure to five. It always proves difficult to “recruit” as many as nine persons, and indeed the work of the Resolutions Committee (defined in Rules 50 and 51) has occasionally shown the difficulty of getting as many as nine persons together in a timely fashion for a meeting,
even virtually. In addition, at the Assembly itself it is onerous to require nine persons to absent themselves from the plenaries in order to discuss any “Emergency Resolutions” that may be submitted. The amendment is therefore in Rule 49 to replace “nine (9) persons” by “five (5) persons”.