Hello judges, in the next few lines I’ll try to summarize how the International Judge Program works. If you want the long version, you can read the full statutes here.
(Please note these Statutes are currently under review of the Spanish Government as a standard part of the association registration process and if any article or part of it is found incompatible with legal requirements, we’ll have to change it.)
How does the International Judge Program work?
For the launch we are going to have a temporary governance that is slightly different from future years. For now, I’m going to focus on explaining the standard procedure and at the end I’ll talk about this first year.
1st) In the first quarter of every year (hopefully on a weekend with no major tournaments) we will have the General Assembly (aka elections).
- In the General Assembly approximately 50% of the Regions will elect their Regional Representative. We wish to keep some continuity in the future of the program by changing only half of the representatives every year.
- The Program Leads will present for review the accounting of the previous year; a summary of what was done in the previous year and the plan and the budget for the current year.
- Any other vote that may be called happens at this time.
This meeting will be hosted online and expected to last for approximately 1 hour. Then the voting window will remain open for 24h. For logistical reasons, as we hope to have several thousand members in the IJP, discussions won’t be possible at the meeting itself. However the agenda with the votes and information will be shared at least two weeks in advance, and during this period, discussions can happen and are encouraged on our forums and other communication channels.
Votes will remain secret until the end of the voting period and then disclosed for transparency.
2nd) At most two weeks after the General Assembly, the Regional Representatives Council, with its newly elected RR will meet to:
- Select two Regional Leads and one Substitute RL.
- Select their Secretary.
The role of the RR will be explained in depth in a future article, but in short: they represent their Region and help the Program Leads understand the circumstances and needs of that Region.
The exact number of Regions will be determined by the RR Council based on the number of judges and what is best for them.
3rd) The Program Leads is a group legally responsible for running the IJP. It’s formed by 4 members and 2 substitutes. Half of them are elected each year by the RR Council for two year terms. Tomorrow, we will publish an article introducing the first year PLs.
What is different in the first year?
- The Program Leads have been selected by the founding members of the IJP.
- There are no PL substitutes, instead all 6 people will form the PL group to account for the extra work required during this first year. For four of the six first year PLs, their term will expire after the first General Assembly, while the other two will keep their positions to transition into the standard process.
- There are no Regional Representatives in the first year yet. Instead, a group of Temporary Regional Advisors will be appointed by the PLs to bring regional perspective and create the starting Regions. In the First General Assembly all Regions will choose their Regional Representative, half of them for 1 year terms and half of them for 2 year terms, to transit into the standard procedure.
What is happening now?
- In a few days we will start taking memberships for the International Judge Program. It will have a period free of charge, until the association receives its tax identification number and can legally collect membership fees. There is no obligation to stay in the association once the paid period starts.
- During that transitory period we’ll try to determine the membership fee to the minimum necessary to operate and estimate the number of members the association will have.
- Regional Representatives and Program Leads are non-paid positions.
- If you have questions you can reach us using the contact form on the website. We will collect the questions and prepare an FAQ document.
