From: schuldy@bedford.progress.COM (Mark Schuldenfrei)
Subject: Re: Event announcements
Organization: The Internet
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 13:58:44 GMT

Lindorm takes issue with some of my conclusions about East Kingdom Law,
and the rights of Seneschals.  I'm gonna do my thing, which is defend myself
by quoting more law.
  
Lindorm says:
  The laws you quote can hardly place the Seneschal in a position to create
  policy over more than giving advice. I think most of the seneschal's
  policies aren't within the scope of the seneschal's office and thus without
  the force of law.

Well, I could have quoted more Corpora at the time, but I didn't.  I'm
giving you the whole section, but I only care about the first paragraph
for this discussion.

-------------------
  VI.C.2 Duties of Specific Offices

      a.  THE SENESCHAL is the chief administrative officer of the
  Society for the Kingdom, which includes coordinating the other king-
  dom officers as required for the smooth operation of the kngdom and
  for its relations with outside agencies.  The Seneschal is respon-
  sible for assisting new branches and branch elevations - see V.B for
  the requirements.
    The Seneschal shall review all proposed changes to kingdom law to
  determine compliance with the governing documents of the Society,
  and advise the Crown accordingly.  The Seneschal shall with due
  promptness either acknowledge the propriety of the changes by signing
  them, prior to the Crown's enacting them, or shall state any conflicts
  in writing to the Crown and to the Great Officers of the kingdom.
  Once the law has been enacted, the Seneschal shall ensure that the
  Steward and the Board ombudsman for the kingdom receive current
  copies, which must include the Seneschal's opinion regarding apparent
  conflicts, if any.
    Where registreation with state or national governmental bodies
  would be beneficial to the Society, the Seneschal shall work with
  the Steward to initiate the appropriate proceedings, and shall
  recommend a member to serve as registered Legal Agent for that
  jurisdiction.  (See Governing and Policy Decision #7.)
    The Seneschal is authorized to use the title "Regional Vice Pres-
  ident" in dealing with individuals and organizations outside the
  Society.
---------------------

Let's stipulate (so I won't have to repeat) that Corpora takes precedence
over Kingdom Law.  This means that the Corporation holds a seneschal
responsible as "chief administrative officer of the Society for the
Kingdom".  That says to me that they are endowed with administrative power
over anything SCA related in that region.  I submit that deciding what
constitutes an event, and requirements over events are legitimate issues
of SCA administration.  Would you disagree?
  

Lindorm also says:
  I guess one could argue that Corpora gives tradition the status of law, and
  it is a tradition of the East that the Seneschal have the right to make
  this kind of policies. I don't think I'd buy that argument.

Well, we seem to respect tradition more than authenticity, right (:-)
  
I wrote:
  >Is the Chronicler allowed to control Pikestaff?  Well, the same section
  >that lists the Seneschal as a Great Officer of State (V.A.1) lists
  >the Kingdom Chronicler as point V.A.1.e, and the responsibilities
  >of the Chronicler are enumerated in V.C.5.b where it says:
  
  >  "Is the editor of, or supervises the editor of, the Kingdom newsletter
  >  Pikestaff, and is responsible for publishing all required announcements,
  >  notices of official events, Kingdom Law, and the like."

Lindorm answers:
  It's hardly the right to make policies on editing which is relevant here,
  but the second part. "responsible for publishing all required
  announcements, notices of officical events ...". Is it clear if the
  Chronicler is responsible for publishing "all required ... notices of
  events", "all ... notices of events" or "notices of events"? I don't think
  so. 
  
  The kingdom is required by Corpora to publish laws, announcements and
  notices of certain events. It makes sense to interpret the law as talking
  about publishing announcements as required by Corpora, Law as required by
  Corpora and notices of events as required in Corpora. Thus the Chronicler
  doesn't have the right to make policies on publishing event announcements in
  general.

Sure they do.  Firstly, Corpora and East Kingdom Law give the chronicler great
power over the printed word:
  Corpora VI.2.g  "THE CHRONICLER supervises all publishing activities of the
                   kingdom, and is the editor or supervises the editor of
                   the kingdom newsletter, which is responsible for all
                   required announcements and notices of Society events,
                   kingdom law, and the like."
  EK Law, V.C.5.a "Chronicler: Supervises all official publishing activities
                   of the Kingdom."

It is kind of confusing what the intent of the law is.  Is the intent here,
to compell the chronicler to publish things which are already official, or
to allow them the latitude to decide what is official?  I concede your point
that the Chronicler duties are not clear.

I would say that you could make either case, but I can more easily make the
case that the Chronicler is in fact allowed to make this rule.  The Chronicler
is required to supervise all SCA newsletters in the kingdom, the kingdom law
is allowed to be more stringent than the corporate.  Governing and Policy
Decision #1, anything the kingdom's publish except kingdom newsletters are
not official, and is not a "corporate publication".  The kingdom chronicler,
therefore, can require that official SCA events be published in the official
corporate publication of the Kingdom.

Contrariwise, it would be dangerous for legal reasons to allow non-official
newsletters the latitude to determine what is and is not an official SCA
event.

However, I would recommend that the Board modify the original wording, and
require official events to be listed in Corporate publications.  I'm looking
forward to your (collective) replies.

	Tibor
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca