Much of the criticism of the Anglican Consultative Council's deliberations concerning the Anglican Communion Covenant has centered on control of the resolutions committee by those opposed to a covenant with real accountability, confusing and inadequately explained procedures during the debate and intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury said to have had the effect of diminishing chances for adoption of the intact Ridley Cambridge draft. As forceful as those criticisms may be, there is still more to the story. The bottom line is that it appears the deliberative process did not produce the resolution claimed to have emerged, because the critical clauses intended to introduce a delay of several months for further consideration of Section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge draft were never approved by the Council. In a discussion at the dais immediately following adjournment of the May 8, 2009 session at which the debate took place, this was apparently pointed out to the Chair, Bishop John Paterson of Auckland, New Zealand. It apparently did not take Bishop Paterson long to realize his mistake, because he quickly reactivated his microphone and announced to the large crowd still in the room that there would need to be a vote on the two clauses in question when the plenary session reconvened at 5 p.m.[1] He went on to apologize for misleading the council members about the status of the proceedings. By the time, however, the plenary reconvened, the position had changed, apparently as a result of discussions involving a legal advisor.[2] Whether the Friday afternoon debate suffered from manipulation or merely inadequate planning and poor communication can be argued either way. When, however, the decision was made to push through the claimed result even after the defective process had become apparent, it becomes harder to escape the conclusion that some degree of manipulative intent was at work. What reason can there have been not to submit the entire resolution to a vote of the Council at the 5 p.m. plenary? None seems apparent other than the obvious: There would have been a substantial risk that the outcome would be different from what had been announced. Amendments and the Main Motion If one learns anything at all about parliamentary procedure, what is learned almost certainly includes knowledge that a favorable vote on a proposed amendment does not result in final approval of anything, but merely changes the main motion, which remains pending in its modified form.[3] What happened with substitute clauses (c) and (d), intended to delay release of the Covenant text to the Provinces and provide for the possible revision of Section 4? What took place is that they were imported into the main motion ("Resolution B") by vote on an amendment, but were never approved in a vote on any main motion. As a consequence, clauses (c) and (d) were never adopted by the Council. This conclusion follows not only from accepted parliamentary practice, but also from the Council's own procedures:
5.6 A main motion shall not be put finally to the meeting until all [] amendments shall have been carried, withdrawn, or otherwise disposed of, and in the event that an amendment shall have been carried, the chair of the session will read to the council the motion as amended before further discussion on the motion or any outstanding further amendment may proceed.
5.7 When all amendments shall have been dealt with, the motion, subject to any agreed amendments, shall be put to the council.
Guidelines for Meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council, http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/resources/docs/constitution.cfm [4] There is no question that the motion adding substitute clauses (c) and (d) was an amendment. In parliamentary language, an amendment includes not only deletions of words and insertions of others in their place, but insertions, including insertions of additional paragraphs or clauses.[5] Both the proponent and the Chairman characterized the motion as an amendment.[6] It is impossible to infer from the (very close) vote on the amendment to insert clauses (c) and (d) into the motion before the Council that the members would have approved the clauses had they ever been included in a main motion. Under well understood procedure, "A member's vote on an amendment does not obligate him to vote in a particular way on the motion to which the amendment applies; he is free to vote as he pleases on the main motion, whether it is amended or not."[7] In fact, Council members were led in the course of the debate to believe that if an amendment incorporating clauses (c) and (d) were approved, there would still be an opportunity to consider whether (c) and (d) were appropriate. Bishop Paterson, the Chair, said, What I understand to be the purport of this proposed C [the resolution that would be before the Council after giving effect to the amendments which would introduce clauses (c) an (d)] is to keep before us all of the original large B [the resolution providing for dispatch to the provinces of the entire Ridley Cambridge text without delay], and to insert, for us to decide whether we want it or not, two small pieces of the former A [calling for detachment of Section 4 from the Ridley Cambridge draft]. So we will not be discarding B. It's all there. Transcribed from video of debate, "ACC 14 Friday Video Tape 1 - Raw Format", http://anglicantv.org/blog/1, at 00:19:59 (visited on May 18, 2009). This language demonstrates that the Chair was anticipating at this time that the amendment to be introduced would result in a revised main motion that would preserve all options. Earlier remarks by Janet Trisk from Southern Africa, who ultimately moved the amendment, were to the same effect: . . . as I understand this amendment, what it's trying to do is to amend both A and B and incorporate them in a new Resolution C. So we're not losing the issues in A, we're not losing the issues in B, but we are trying to deal with them so that we don't end up with confusion. . . . If we go for this C, the big C, the new draft resolution, what we can then do, we can debate each one of the (a) to (f) six points and make up our minds on each one of those. So if you are somebody that supports Section 4 as it stands, then we can make a decision. If you are someone who says we need more work on Section 4 then you can also make a decision but that's all contained in new Resolution C. Id., at 00:06:15. The point here is that not only the Chair but the member moving the amendment envisioned that if the amendment that would be introduced passed, all options would be preserved for the subsequent debate. That is what did not happen. After the vote on the amendment carried, the Chair proceeded as though newly inserted clauses (c) and (d) had been approved and were no longer subject to debate. He said, "That leaves us still debating what was clause (c) and is now (e) . . ." and never came back to newly inserted (c) and (d). Voting clause-by-clause Surely Bishop Paterson knew the rule that voting on an amendment leaves open the outcome of voting on the main motion.[8] What then happened? It appears he may have been thrown off by an earlier mistake. The earlier mistake was that he decided to take separate votes on each of the clauses of Resolution B. This procedure ("division of the question") is appropriate only when each of the clauses is capable of standing on its own as a complete proposition.[9] This was not the case with original Resolution B and became even less so when the contemplated amendment to Resolution B was approved. What the bishop should have done was proceed on a clause-by-clause basis for debate and amendment, but not have a vote on adoption until all clauses had been considered separately and the entire resolution opened to final motions to amend. This procedure would have avoided the difficulties of voting on one part without being able to predict the interaction with the results of considering the later clauses.[10] The mistaken procedure involving clause-by-clause votes probably still could have produced a salvageable result were it not for the interaction with the amendment issue. When consideration of Resolution B began, the Chair proposed that there would be four votes on the four clauses. He failed, however, to adjust his thinking when the amendment resulted in Resolution B having six clauses instead. The result was that clauses (a), (b), (e) and (f) were voted on, but not (c) or (d). Explanations Bishop Paterson's change in view between the immediate aftermath of the debate when he acknowledged error and the beginning of the 5 p.m. session at which time he said that his view had changed following consultation with counsel seems to suggest that an explanation might come from Canon John Rees, legal adviser to the ACC. In a press briefing on May 11, 2009,[11] Canon Rees responded to a question about criticism of the handling of the Covenant debate by saying, "I think it was quite clear what the outcome was of the way in which those series of motions were handled. I don't have any misgivings about that myself. . . . I've seen excitable comments about it, but essentially they've come from people who were not present in the room and therefore couldn't discern for themselves what the general assent of the meeting was." Canon Rees' answer did not address the issues raised above, but seemed instead to place reliance on an ability of some of those present (but not those watching video or reading a transcript) to be able to discern a "general assent" to clauses on which no final vote had been taken. A subsequent questioner at the same press briefing tried to get at the issue directly by asking at what point in the process the substituted resolutions (c) and (d) were formally accepted into debate so that they could be discussed. Neither Bishop Paterson nor Canon Rees answered the question, Bishop Paterson instead addressing why he permitted a vote on the amendment and Canon Rees referring to the Chair's "extensive powers for steering debate." In a follow-up question related to the application of the breadth of the Chairman's powers as applied in other circumstance, Canon Rees referred to the alternative of having a large body of standing orders and said that the ACC had been moving away from that alternative because it was "far too Western, parliamentary dominated." But it is one thing to dispense with detailed rules governing how debate proceeds, and quite another, in a system where voting on resolutions does in fact take place and determines outcomes, to disregard elementary rules governing that voting in favor of some ill-defined ability to discern "general assent."[12] Mike Watson Mark McCall -------------------------------------- [1] The Chair's words were: "Members of the Council, I have been asked to clarify the status of where we have got to and I think it's fair to say that the vote on the amendment to include those two clauses was carried but we still need to commit those clauses to a vote. And I apologize for misleading you on that matter. I have called the adjournment and so I think we have to stay with that. I think we might have to recommit those two clauses . . . not recommit, I mean just to vote on those two clauses when we reassemble . . . at the plenary at 5." Transcribed from video of debate, "ACC 14 Friday Video Tape 2 - Raw Format", http://anglicantv.org/blog/1, at 22:28:19 (visited on May 18, 2009). [2] A live-blog by Robert Lundy, Communications Officer for the American Anglican Council offered this rendition of the Chairman's remarks when the plenary session resumed shortly after 5 p.m.: "I've had a discussion with our legal advisor...I feel that each section of the covenant was dealt with and we now have a decision on the covenant." http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/22457/ (visited May 18, 2009). [3] Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (10th ed.), §12, at 125-160. Robert's Rules is published in the United States but at this level of detail is consistent with procedures derived from English parliamentary practice generally, including the United States and a number of other countries. The same result would apply, for example, at the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. [4] Visited on May 18, 2009. These meeting procedures were apparently adopted at ACC-11 in Dundee, Scotland in 1999. See clause (c) of Resolution 6 set forth at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/meetings/acc11/resolutions.cfm#s6 (visited May 18, 2009). [5] Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, supra note 3, at 128-29. [6] For example, Ms. Trisk began her motion with "I propose the following amendment . . . ." Transcribed from video of debate, "ACC 14 Friday Video Tape 2 - Raw Format", supra note 1, at 00:40:23. Following the motion and an exchange with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Chairman Paterson said, "So we now turn our attention to the amendment. Are there any speakers?" Id., at 00:42:24. [7] Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, supra note 3, at 125. [8] The Chairman observed the distinction on other occasions, such as when two other amendments to what was originally clause (c) were voted on and a final vote on the clause taken after it had been redesignated clause (e). He called for the vote amended and redesignated clause (e) by saying, "That leaves us with the vote on whether the new Clause (e) which was (c) do now stand as amended . . . ." Transcribed from video of debate, "ACC 14 Friday Video Tape 2 - Raw Format", supra note 1, at 00:54:36. In addition, the same rule applies in Bishop Paterson's own Province. "A Motion which has been amended shall finally be submitted in its entirely to the vote of the Synod / te HÄ«nota." Standing Order No. 53 of the General Synod / Te HÄ«nota WhÄnui of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia at http://www.anglican.org.nz/Canons%20Reprint/Pdf.%20Files/14.%20Standing%20Orders%202006.pdf (visited on May 18, 2009). [9] Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, supra note 3, §27, at 261-66. [10] See Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, supra note 3, §28, at 266-70. [11] Archived at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2009/5/11/ACNS4624 (visited on May 18, 2009). [12] If Sections 5.6 and 5.7 of the ACC's Guidelines referred to earlier in this paper are objectionable Western standing orders, or if they are no longer on the books, it would be good to be informed of that fact and what if anything has taken their place.
