"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robin...@gmail.com> writes:
> Looking only at the Constitution itself, I see the following.
> 1. "a person or body is usually listed before any people or bodies
> whose decisions they can overrule or who they (help) appoint - but
> not everyone listed earlier can overrule everyone listed later."
> 2. The DPL is placed _above_ the TC in the overruling precedence chart.
> 3. The DPL's delegates are generally understood to be capable of
> exercising any power the DPL can, pursuant to the DPL's explicit,
> specific delegation of same. But...
> 4. The TC is placed _above_ the DPL's delegates in the overruling
> precedence chart.
> To me, from a Constitutional perspective, then, your claim that
>> the TC cannot overrule delegates.
> ...does not appear to be well-founded. Again, it's fine if the TC has
> adopted, for comity or any other reason, a working principle that it
> will not overrule delegates, but that seems to be a self-imposed
> restriction, and should be communicated to the Developers as such.
I am not the project secretary, just one random developer, but for
whatever it's worth, I think this interpretation of the constitution is
incorrect and the TC does not have the ability to override a delegate.
The main weight of your argument seems to rest on a (to me) novel
interpretation that the order in which bodies are listed in section 2 is
normative, not informative. This seems clearly incorrect given the plain
wording of the subsequent paragraph, which does not say the order is
significant, only that it is informative. The normative text says that
overrides will be explicitly noted:
The powers of a person or body may be subject to review and/or
limitation by others; in this case the reviewing body or person's
entry will state this.
The clear implication is that if the entry does *not* state this, then the
powers are *not* subject to review by that body or person.
The non-normative text then elaborates (emphasis mine):
In the list above, a person or body is *usually* listed before any
people or bodies whose decisions they can overrule or who they (help)
appoint - *but not everyone listed earlier can overrule everyone
listed later.*
I think it's much clearer and simpler to note that the TC has a list of
specifically enumerated powers in section 6.1 and overriding Project
Delegates is not one of them. The TC can override Developers, as you
quoted, but I would interpret that to mean Individual Developers (i.e.,
section 3), and the constitution clearly puts Project Delegates in a
separate category (section 8).
Compare to 4.1.3, which says quite explicitly that a GR can override the
DPL or Project Delegates. This language is conspicuously absent from the
list of powers of the TC, and I believe that should be read normatively.
Obviously Kurt has the final say, but if he were to ask me my opinion,
that's what I'd tell him.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
