Public Consultation

Title
Public Consultation
DRACC
0005
Category
Regulatory
Scope
Global
Authors
Leenaars, M.A.G.J.; Šuklje, M.
Date
January 2017
Copyright
The Commons Conservancy
License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Programmes (see DRACC “Mapping rights to Programmes”) within [The Commons Conservancy] operate under their own responsibility, but occasionally consulting the Programme’s stakeholders at large (which includes the general public) is desired or even required. This document prescribes how such a Public Consultation SHALL be handled. The time frames mentioned in this document for each of the different steps MUST be kept, unless other time frames are explicitly specified and motivated in a regulation that prescribes or requests a Public Consultation.

Public Consultation procedure

  1. When a Programme wants or is REQUIRED to by its statutes or regulations to conduct a Public Consultation, the Programme SHALL send a written request to the Board of [The Commons Conservancy] with a detailed proposal of what it wants or needs to gather Public Consultation on. If the proposal involves any assets that are already shared among different Programmes – i.e. as the result of a previous Shared Asset Forking procedure or Asset Sharing (see DRACC “Programme Forking” and DRACC “Asset Sharing”) – this MUST be indicated in the request. If a Programme has made provisions in its statutes or regulations regarding certain assets or certain procedures, those provisions MUST be indicated in the request. If the governance body of the Programme is also REQUIRED to approve the proposal, a written approval MUST be included with the request.
  2. A confirmation of receipt SHALL be sent by the Board of [The Commons Conservancy] to the governance body of the Programme(s) involved and to the initiators of the Public Consultation procedure, should they be other than a Programme’s governance body.
  3. The Board of [The Commons Conservancy] SHALL check any provisions in the statutes or regulations of the Programme. Such provisions MUST be honoured, provided they are in compliance with the regulations of [The Commons Conservancy] at the time of entry of the Programme into [The Commons Conservancy] or with any later version of said regulations if they were explicitly adopted by the Programme.
  4. The Board SHALL publish the full request on the revelant official publication channel(s) of [The Commons Conservancy] (e.g. its website), and open a 28 day public consultation window open to all stakeholders – such as, for example, users and developers of the Programme’s work and the works of any of its Shared Asset Forks, should they already exist. Any Programmes identified as having any assets already shared with involved Programmes – i.e. as the result of a previous Shared Asset Forking procedure or Asset Sharing (see DRACC “Programme Forking” and DRACC “Asset Sharing”) – SHALL be explicitly notified. Respondents to the Public Consultation MAY mark their responses as public or private, in case they have reasons to keep their response confidential in order to protect their privacy. [The Commons Conservancy] SHALL take reasonable measures to protect the privacy of the respondents who asked for their responses to be treated confidentially.
  5. If no contest or reasonable objection is received through the Public Consultation, the decision is automatically deemed as favourable and [the Commons Conservancy] SHALL without undue delay publish its favourable decision. If there are significant and reasonable objections, the initiators of the Public Consultation procedure SHALL be asked to respond to each of these objections and given reasonable time for their response, with a minimum of 14 days.
  6. The response of the initiators of the Public Consultation procedure to any contestations or objections SHALL be sent to the individuals or Programmes that made them, which in turn will be given reasonable time for their response, with a miminum of 14 days, to respond.
  7. Within 14 days after the Public Consultation has ended, depending on the outcome of the Public Consultation, the Board of [The Commons Conservancy] SHALL either a) publish its decision detailing how it will execute the accepted proposal; or b) its own proposed resolution procedure for any remaining issues. Until all issues are resolved, the Public Consultation procedure and all procedures that depend on it will be formally halted. As soon as all issues are resolved, said procedures will continue.
  8. When permission from the Board of [The Commons Conservancy] is granted, the required organisational, legal and technical infrastructure for the new situation SHALL be brought into readiness. Any new Programme that needs to be established will enter the Setup Phase (as defined in the DRACC “Programme Lifecycle”). The Board of [The Commons Conservancy] SHALL validate that any new statutes and regulations that are created take into account any immutable provisions from the statutes or regulations of the originating Programme(s).
  9. [The Commons Conservancy] SHALL publish the resolution from the Board on the relevant official publication channel(s) of [The Commons Conservancy] (e.g. its website). Any and all relevant information on these channels SHALL be updated to reflect the new situation. The necessary changes in infrastructure setup which follow the decision (such as a redirection of web pages, or adding pointers to the new Programmes) SHALL be made. [The Commons Conservancy] SHALL inform all active contributors linked to the original Programme by email of its decision and the affectuated request.

Opt out of Public Consultation updates

If a contributor later wishes to stop receiving such updates per email, they MAY notify the Board of [The Commons Conservancy]. The Board of [The Commons Conservancy] SHALL honour such opt-out decisions.