20/08/2009
NEWS STORY
FIA Presidential hopeful Jean Todt has written to the FIA explaining how he intends reviewing the FIA statutes.
His letter reads as follows:
Dear President
In our policy agenda released last month we made a commitment to a comprehensive review of the FIA Statutes. In this letter we would like to outline in more detail some of the issues that we suggest could be included in such a review which we believe will enhance the transparency, democracy and efficiency of our Federation.
If elected we would propose to establish a special Statutes Review Commission jointly chaired by the two FIA Deputy Presidents. The Commission would be charged with examining the current Statutes and preparing a report with proposed amendments that could then be considered by the entire FIA membership. Following this consultation the proposed amendments could then be voted on at either an Extraordinary General Assembly next summer or the 2010 Annual General Assembly.
For an organisation over 100 years old it is inevitable that Statutes require review from time to time to ensure that the organisation remains responsive to the needs of its member clubs. The major issues that we propose to be included in our comprehensive review include the following:
The Presidential Election system (Article 9)
The list system, which is being used for the first time in a contested election, has been subject to considerable debate within the FIA. A minority of clubs have argued for no list, a larger group have favoured a shorter list, and a narrow majority favour the current system. A compromise 'short list' system was proposed to the General Assembly last year but was lost rather unexpectedly by just one vote. We suggest that this issue should be revisited and further thought given to the development of a list system that is similar to the shorter list compromise proposed last year.
The role of FIA Vice Presidents (Article 19)
The precise role of the FIA Vice Presidents could be more clearly defined and we believe that there would be considerable merit in giving a specific regional function to them. In each world region, for example, there could be a Vice President for Sport and a Vice President of Mobility. For the Mobility regions it would make sense to align the Vice Presidency term and appointments with their Regional Presidencies so that ideally they are the same individual. Regional Vice Presidents could help encourage synergies between the two pillars of sport and mobility and ensure that we have leadership representatives in all major world regions. At the moment there are no potential Mobility Vice President candidates from the Middle East and Africa, even though those two regions contain growing and increasingly active Clubs. Under the current list system, there is also no provision that requires representatives from those regions as Vice Presidential candidates. A new regional structure of Vice Presidents would help solve this problem.
The role of the Senate (Article 17)
In contrast to the two World Councils, the Senate has no terms of reference to guide its work and we suggest this should be reviewed. At present the Senate deals mainly with financial matters but does have a role to examine "general problems of FIA policy". Given that the Senate brings together senior club representatives from both the Sport and Mobility pillars we believe that the Senate could be given a more strategic role in shaping the overall direction of the FIA's development, especially in matters of common concern to the entire membership. The relationship between the Senate and the Committee (the annual meeting of the two World Councils) could also be examined. It might be possible to transfer the functions of the Committee to the Senate and thereby simplify the Statutes and streamline the annual meeting agenda. We think this possibility should be examined during the review.
The Regional Structure of the FIA (Article 20)
The Mobility pillar of the FIA has four regions and the sport pillar operates a series of Zones. These are both very important structures in which clubs meet and work together. We strongly believe that the FIA's regional and zone system should be strengthened and we would like to examine the case for moving towards a common regional system for both pillars that would recognise more clearly all world regions, especially Africa and the Middle East which tends to be under represented at present, as was already mentioned above.
Dispute Resolution and the International Court of Appeal (Article 23)
In our policy agenda we have already proposed establishing a Disciplinary Committee that could deal with specific cases referred to it by the World Motor Sport Council. This proposal will require amendments to the Statues and also the International Sporting Code. In addition, arising from the negotiations over the new Concorde agreement, changes are being proposed to the procedures of the International Court of Appeal. For Formula One cases, in future, judges considering appeals will be drawn from the ICA panel and also from a panel nominated by Formula One teams. At present FIA members have the exclusive right to nominate judges to serve in the ICA. Some argue, we believe wrongly, that this compromises their independence. However, in order to ensure that the appeals system is seen to be fully independent there is merit in exploring the possibility of enabling competitors in all the major FIA World Championships to nominate judges to the ICA, perhaps through the Manufacturers Commission. This is another subject that we believe should be included in our proposed review.
Opportunities for Affiliated Clubs to Engage With the FIA
There are many large and successful clubs that have an indirect involvement with the FIA through their affiliation with a National Federation which is the FIA member. While it is important that National Federations retain their pre-eminence (e.g. formal country representation and voting rights at General Assemblies, Regional Plenary Assemblies and similar) it should be possible for their affiliated clubs to have an "associate" or similar status within the FIA and so have greater engagement with the FIA's activities. This would be to the benefit of all FIA member clubs as it would bring a wider range of experience to the activities, allowing us to share knowledge and improve the quality and relevance of our work on behalf of mobility and motor sport. This should be considered as part of the review process.
Independent Review and Benchmarking of Governance Systems
We would also like to suggest that the Statutes Review Commission be assisted by an independent authority to compare the FIA Statutes and decision-making procedures with best practice in both corporate and sporting governance. In 2001 the FIA co-organised a successful conference on 'Governance in Sport' with, inter alia, Mario Monti, then European Competition Commissioner and Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee. We would recommend that the FIA also organise a follow up conference that can encourage world sports federations to share experience and benchmark good practices in their governance systems. Finally, the other declared candidate in the current election has proposed to change the voting system in the FIA to give more votes to larger clubs (*). We strongly disagree with this proposal which would simply concentrate power in the FIA among a small number of mobility clubs that have large individual memberships simply because they exist in countries with large populations. In fact some of our most successful clubs in both sport and mobility come from small countries and per capita have achieved very high membership levels. Why should they receive fewer votes just because geography limits the absolute size of their potential membership? We think it would be both unfair and undemocratic to move away from a system that gives all countries the same voting rights. Furthermore, the subject of weighted votes has been debated within the FIA on a number of occasions and always rejected. So we see no purpose in including it in our proposed Statutes review.
Of course, any eventual amendments suggested by the review would be subject to full consultation with the FIA membership, a thorough debate, and a vote of the General Assembly.
The issues that we have raised in this letter are simply our thoughts and we would very much welcome additional ideas and comment from the FIA membership. Debate is the life blood of democracy and that is why we have prepared this letter to encourage the widest possible discussion of the changes that we all need to consider as together we seek to strengthen our Federation and its twin pillars of sport and mobility.
Yours sincerely
Jean Todt
* This refers to the fact that the American Automobile Association (AAA) currently have the same number of votes as the Ugandans.