Policy-Discussion

["Etienne Ruedin (CAcert Inc.)" <eruedin AT cacert.org>]

Hi all

A good point, Iang rises. If the arbitrators usually handled it as
described, I think, there is no need for echanges in the DRP, but if we
have douzends/hundreds/thousands of cases queueing for years, it would be
better to have some official precisions.

Also I would be happy to here some other voices from people that know the
matter better than me.

Best regards
Etienne
(member of the community)


On Tue, 25 Jul 2017 14:39:40 +0200, Iang 
<iang AT cacert.org>
 wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> One of the unfortunate side-effects of CAcert's Arbitration is that all 
> filings are often treated with the full force, as if they were all 
> really important civil matters.  This is not really scaleable.  Giving 
> all the seriousness of a criminal-jury trial to a lightweight case, or 
> one that just doesn't seem to attract attention, will not work.  It 
> should be clearly seen as a signal to drop the case.  If not, why not?
> 
> 
> 
> In DRP it says
> 
>     /If no Arbitrator accepts the dispute, the case is closed with
>     status "declined."/
> 
> Which should be pretty clear.  If it's not clear enough, perhaps amend 
> DRP?  But let's see what is not clear first.
> 
> /"If no Arbitrator..."/ probably means active arbitration. No point in 
> waiting for the inactive ones to say yes or no, because they are ... 
> inactive.
> 
> /"...accepts the case..."/ raises a notification question both to the 
> Arbitrator and back to the DRO or other agent that is responsible for 
> handling this.  If there is good reason to believe ("the reasonable man 
> test" ?) that notification is done perhaps by the active Arbitration 
> list or other means, and nothing has been heard within a time, then 
> we've reached a conclusion - none have accepted the case.
> 
> How long is a time?  Well, for small cases, I would say a month. This 
> was in the minds of the authors when DRP was written.  For anything 
> else, judgement applies, but likely 3 months would suffice for all but 
> the most distressing cases.  Certainly, in no case longer than a year.
> 
> The notion that there is a case filed a year later with no arbitrator 
> signals abuse.  We are also about protecting the respondents, and they 
> *must* be given equal protection.  If there is no Arbitrator to respond 
> to, they cannot respond.  Yet it is their right to respond.  This cannot 
> go on for ever, it must be terminated otherwise we are in breach of our 
> principles and the laws of the land.
> 
> Then, /"the case is closed ..." "/  Closing is clear, right?  Shut down, 
> archived, dropped from the public record.  It never received a fair 
> hearing so it must not be allowed to haunt the future.
> 
> Finally, /"... with status "declined." "/  Status "declined" is simply 
> there to indicate it has been closed because it gained no attention from 
> the Arbitrator.  This is a signal that it didn't have much or enough 
> merit.  That is a signal no more, that isn't a judgement.  But it needs 
> to be distinguished from /"Dismissed"/ which literally means "this case 
> has no merit" being a binary.
> 
> 
> 
> So, an open question.  Is the situation not clear enough?  Or do we need 
> to amend the DRP?  Either angle is fine.
> 
> iang