[CCWG-ACCT] [Ws2-ombudsman] IOO WS2 Sub Group first Report to the CCWG-Accountability WS2 for consideration at Sept Meeting

[Michael Karanicolas]

Hi all,

Just to chime in - #3 really seems like a good point, to me. I could
certainly see a potential complainant for, say, harassment, being
deterred from reporting if they saw the Ombudsman drinking and
socializing with the subject of their complaint. Though it may make
the job less fun - I do think it's important to keep distance when one
has such a position.

#2 also seems very important... but also challenging. Having an
external 3rd party provide ombudsman services may not solve this
problem since, presumably, they would still need to be contracted in
by ICANN, leaving them equally subject to influence - and potentially
even more so. Imagine the Ombudsman was someone seconded over from
some KPMG-like organization. Wouldn't their higher ups pressure them
to avoid rocking the boat, and jeopardizing the contract? I am
personally more accustomed to such challenges in a public sector
context where, indeed, longer and fixed-term contracts (security of
tenure) are the preferred means of ensuring that an official (like,
say, human rights commissioners) won't be swayed by political forces,
along with making the official difficult to fire through oversight of
termination proceedings and strong and specific requirements for cause
(incapacity, missing a certain number of meetings, demonstrated
incompetence, etc.).

Just some thoughts. Thanks of course to Sebastien for his excellent
work on this, and to Farzi for bringing these issues up.

Michael Karanicolas

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu> wrote:
> I find it difficult to see how anyone could disagree with these points.
>
>
>
> 1. I don't think we can solve the problem of independence by giving the
> ombudspersons a 5 year contract. I have provided my reasons before. If by 5
> years fixed contract you mean the Ombuds office as an entity should be given
> a fixed term contract that is fine. But ombudspersons getting fixed
> five-year contract won't solve the problem.
>
>
>
> 2. Ombuds has to be an office and not a person. At the moment it's a person.
> I think to maintain the independence of the office, we need to have
> preferably an external organization that provides ombuds services and its
> revenue is not only dependent on ICANN. That way we can ensure independence.
>
>
>
> 3. Under no circumstances, the ombudspersons should socialize and befriend
> community members ( this is a very obvious independence element, have you
> ever encountered the decision maker of your case at a social event talking
> and smiling at the party you filed a complaint against? It is written in
> first year legal text books that independence is very much affected by
> social encounters and interactions)
>
>
>
> I don't think the current recommendations are sufficient enough to expand
> the ombuds office mandate. But I do need written reasons for not considering
> the points I have made. It is simply not enough that the WS2 group on Ombuds
> did not agree with my comments.
>
>
>
>
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