Who runs the union?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Monday May 22, 2006 23:11 by Patrique - NIPSA

Stalinism or Democracy?

NIPSA conference meets next week to decide policies and principles. But who decides these, the members and branches, or General Council.

Someone on another thread helpfully mentioned Stalingrad in a post, which set me to thinking about Joe Stalin. Now Joe had this system known as "Democratic Centralism", whereby the party elected an inner sanctum, and the inner sanctum ruled on behalf of the party, they made all the decisions, and could not be questioned by the party membership.

Having looked at Category X on the conference agenda, I was wondering if the NIPSA General Council believe that NIPSA adhers to Democratic Centralism. Category X contains the motions ruled out of order, and many are ruled out on the grounds "that General Council does this, you cannot tell General Council what to do".

Now look at the NIPSA constitution. Rule 5.1 states: " The Annual General Conference shall determine the principles and policies of the Union". That is all it says, no more, no less.

Now look at rule 6.1: "Between meetings of the Delegate Conference, the general management and control of the union and the handling of the whole affairs shall be VESTED in the General Council (hereinafter referred to as The Council). The Council shall conduct its affairs in accordance with these rules, and with the principles and policies of the Union as determined by the Delegate Conference".

So it would appear that General Council can only act on behalf of Delegate Conference. So why are motions ruled out of order on the grounds that you cannot tell General Council what to do? The constitution clearly states that conference tell them what to do.

Comments welcome, especially if they can enlighten me, and explain this apparent contradiction to the constitution.