Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies/Part 3
PART III.
MISCELLANEOUS.
66. The Right of Deliberative Assemblies to Punish their Members.
A deliberative assembly has the inherent right to make and enforce its own laws and punish an offender—the extreme penalty, however, being expulsion from its own body. When expelled, if the assembly is a permanent society, it has a right, for its own protection, to give public notice that the person has ceased to be a member of that society.
But it has no right to go beyond what is necessary for self-protection and publish the charges against the member. In a case where a member of a society was expelled, and an officer of the society published, by their order, a statement of the grave charges upon which he had been found guilty, the expelled member recovered damages from the officer in a suit for libel, the Court holding that the truth of the charges did not affect the case.
67. Right of an Assembly to Eject any one from its Place of Meeting.
Every deliberative assembly has the right to decide who may be present during its session; and when the assembly, either by a rule or by a vote, decides that a certain person shall not remain in the room, it is the duty of the Chairman to enforce the rule or order, using whatever force is necessary to eject the party.
The Chairman can detail members to remove the person, without calling upon the police. If, however, in enforcing the order, any one uses harsher treatment than is necessary to remove the person, the courts have held that he, and he alone, is liable to prosecution, just the same as a policeman would be under similar circumstances. However badly the man may be abused while being removed from the room, neither the Chairman nor the society are liable for damages, as, in ordering his removal, they did not exceed their legal rights.
68. Rights of Ecclesiastical Tribunals.
Many of our deliberative assemblies are ecclesiastical bodies, and it is important to know how much respect will be paid to their decisions by the civil courts.
A church became divided, and each party claimed to be the church, and therefore entitled to the church property. The case was taken into the civil courts, and finally, on appeal, to the U. S. Supreme Court, which held the case under advisement for one year, and then reversed the decision of the State Court, because it conflicted with the decision of the highest ecclesiastical court that had acted upon the case. The Supreme Court, in rendering its decision, laid down the broad principle that, when alocal church is but a part of a larger and more general organization or denomination, the court will accept the decision of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal to which the case has been carried within that general church organization as final, and will not inquire into the justice or injustice of its decree as between the parties before it. The officers, the ministers, the members, or the church body, which the highest judiciary of the denomination recognizes, the court will recognize. Whom that body expels or cuts off, the court will hold to be no longer members of that church.
69. Trial of Members of Societies.
Every deliberative assembly, having the right to purify its own body, must therefore have the right to investigate the character of its members. It can require any of them to testify in the case, under pain of expulsion if they refuse.
When the charge is against the member’s character, it is usually referred to a committee of investigation or discipline, or to some standing committee, to report upon. Some societies have standing committees, whose duty it is to report cases for discipline whenever any are known to them.
In either case the committee investigate the matter and report to the society. This report need not go into details, but should contain their recommendations as to what action the society should take, and should usually close with resolutions covering the case, so that there is no need for any one to offer any additional resolutions upon it. The ordinary resolutions, where the member is recommended to be expelled, are (1) to fix the time to which the society shall adjourn; and (2) to instruct the clerk to cite the member to appear before the society at this adjourned meeting to show cause why he should not be expelled, upon the following charges which should then be given.
After charges are preferred against a member, and the assembly has ordered that he be cited to appear for trial, he is theoretically under arrest, and is deprived of all the rights of membership until his case is disposed of. Without his consent no member should be tried at the same meeting at which the charges are preferred, excepting when the charges relate to something done in that meeting.
The clerk should send the accused a written notice to appear before the society at the time appointed, and should at the same time furnish him with a copy of the charges. A failure to obey the summons is generally cause enough for summary expulsion.
At the appointed meeting what may be called the trial takes place. Frequently the only evidence required against the member is the report of the committee. After it has been read and any additional evidence offered that the committee may see fit to introduce, the accused should be allowed to make an explanation and introduce witnesses, if he so desires. Either party should be allowed to cross-examine the other’s witnesses and introduce rebutting testimony. When the evidence is all in, the accused should retire from the room, and the society deliberate upon the question, and finally act by a vote upon the question of expulsion, or other punishment proposed. No member should be expelled by less than a two-thirds[1] vote—a quorum voting.
In acting upon the case, it must be borne in mind that there is a vast distinction between the evidence necessary to convict in a civil court and that required to convict in an ordinary society or ecclesiastical body. A notorious pickpocket could not even be arrested, much less convicted by a civil court, simply on the ground of being commonly known asa pickpocket; while such evidence would convict and expel him from any ordinary society. The moral conviction of the truth of the charge is all that is necessary, in an ecclesiastical or other deliberative body, to find the accused guilty of the charges.
If the trial is liable to be long and troublesome, or of a very delicate nature, the member is frequently cited to appear before a committee, instead of the society, for trial. In this case the committee report to the society the result of their trial of the case, with resolutions covering the punishment which they recommend the society to adopt. When the committee’s report is read, the accused should be permitted to make his statement of the case, the committee being allowed to reply. The accused then retires from the room, and the society act upon the resolutions submitted by the committee. The members of the committee should vote upon the case the same as other members.
If the accused wishes counsel at his trial, it is usual to allow it, provided the counsel is a member of the society in good standing. Should the counsel be guilty of improper conduct during the trial, the society can refuse to hear him, and can also punish him.
70. Call of the House.
The object of a call of the house is to compel the attendance of absent members, and is allowable only in assemblies that have the power to compel the attendance of absentees. It is usual to provide that when no quorum is present, a small number [one-fifth of the members elect in Congress[2]] can order a call of the house. To prevent this privilege from being used improperly, it is well to provide that when the call is made the members cannot adjourn or dispense with further proceedings in the call until a quorum is obtained. A rule like the following would answer for city councils and other similar bodies that have the power to enforce attendance:
Rule. When no quorum is present, — members may order a call of the house and compel the attendance of absent members. After the call is ordered, a motion to adjourn, or to dispense with further proceedings in the call, cannot be entertained until a quorum is present, or until the Sergeant-at-Arms reports that in his opinion no quorum can be obtained on that day.
If no quorum is present a call of the house takes precedence of everything, even reading the minutes, except the motion to adjourn, and only requires in its favor the number specified in the rule. If a quorum is present a call should rank with questions of privilege [§ 12], requiring a majority vote for its adoption, and if rejected it should not be renewed, while a quorum is present, at that meeting [see first note to § 42]. After a call is ordered, until further proceedings in the call are dispensed with, no motion is in order except to adjourn and a motion relating to the call, so that a recess could not be taken by unanimous consent. An adjournment puts an end to all proceedings in the call, except that the assembly before adjournment, if a quorum is present, can order such members as are already arrested to make their excuses at an adjourned meeting. Proceedings in a Call of the House. When the call is ordered the clerk calls the roll of members alphabetically, noting the absentees; he then calls over again the names of absentees, when excuses[3] can be made; after this the doors are locked, no one being permitted to leave, and an order similar in form to the following is adopted: “That the Sergeant-atArms take into custody, and bring to the bar of the House, such of its members as are absent without the leave of the House.” A warrant signed by the presiding officer and attested by the clerk, with a list of absentees attached, is then given to the Sergeant-at-Arms,[4] who immediately proceeds to arrest the absentees. When he appears with members under arrest, he proceeds to the Chairman’s desk (being announced by the doorkeeper in large bodies), followed by the arrested members, and makes his return. The Chairman arraigns each member separately, and asks what excuse he has to offer for being absent from the sittings of the . assembly without its leave. The member states his excuse, and a motion is made that he be discharged from custody and admitted to his seat either without payment of fees or after paying the fees. Until a member has paid the fees assessed against him he cannot vote or be recognized by the Chair for any purpose.
- ↑ The U. S. Constitution [Art. 1, Sec. 5] provides that each house of Congress may, ‘‘with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”
- ↑ In the early history of our Congress a call of the house required a day’s notice, and in the English Parliament it is usual to order that the call shall be made on a certain day in the future, usually not over ten days afterwards, though it has been as long as six weeks afterwards. The object of this is to give notice so that all the members may be present on that day, when important business is to come before the house. In Congress a call of the house is only used now when no quorum is present, and as soon as a quorum appears it is usual to dispense with further proceedings in the call, and this is in order at any stage of the proceedings. In some of our legislative bodies proceedings in the call cannot be dispensed with except a majority of the members elect vote in favor of so doing. In Congress it is customary afterwards to remit the fees that have been assessed.
- ↑ It is usual in Congress to excuse those who have “paired off,” that is, two members on opposite sides of the pending question who have agreed that both will stay away. In order to ‘‘pair off,” the absence of both parties must not affect the result, which would rarely be the case in municipal bodies like those under consideration.
- ↑ “It shall be the duty of the Sergeant-at-Arms to attend the House during its sittings; to aid in the enforcement of order, under the direction of the Speaker; to execute the commands of the House from time to time; together with all such process, issued by authority thereof, as shall be directed to him by the Speaker” (Rule 22 H. R.) The words ‘‘Sergeant-at-Arms” can be replaced in the order by “Chief of Police,” or whatever officer is to serve the process.