Article 4: Distributed Authority

As a Role Lead, you have the authority to take any action or make any decision to enact your Role’s Purpose or Accountabilities, as long as you don't break a rule defined in this Constitution. When prioritizing and choosing among your potential actions, you may use your own reasonable judgment of the relative value to the Organization of each.

4.1 Constraints on Authority

As a Role Lead, you must honor the following constraints on your authority.

4.1.1 Don't Violate Policies

While acting in a Role, you may not violate any Policies of the Role itself or of any Circle containing the Role.

4.1.2 Get Permission Before Impacting Domains

In service of your Role, you have the authority to impact and control your Role's Domains.

You may also impact any Domain held by a Circle containing your Role and not further delegated, or any Domain such a Circle itself may impact. But if you believe your impact will be substantially difficult or expensive to undo, you need to get permission.

You may not exert control or cause a material impact on a Domain delegated to a Role or Circle that doesn't contain your Role, unless you get permission. Nor may you do so on a Domain owned by another sovereign entity without permission.

When you need permission to impact a Domain, you may get it from whomever controls that Domain. You may also get permission by announcing your intent to take a specific action, and inviting anyone with a relevant Domain to object. You must then wait a reasonable time to allow responses. If no one objects in that time, you then have permission to impact any Domains owned by any Role in the Organization that your announcement reached. You may assume a written announcement has reached anyone who typically reads messages in the channel you used. Any permission so granted only applies while taking the specific action you announced. A Policy may change or constrain this process.

4.1.3 Get Authorization Before Spending Money

You may not spend any money or other assets unless you first get authorized to do so. This authorization must come from a Role that already has control of those resources for spending purposes. It counts as spending if you dispose of significant property of the Organization, or significantly limit any of its rights.

To get authorized to spend, you must announce your intent to spend in writing to the Role you're seeking authorization from. You must share this announcement where all Partners serving as Role Leads of that Role or within that Role will typically see it. Your statement must include the reason for the spending, and the Role you'll spend from. You must then wait a reasonable time to allow consideration and responses. Any recipient of your announcement may escalate the spending for extra consideration, and you may not proceed with the spending if escalated. However, a Role Lead of the Role you're seeking authorization from may reverse an escalation, as may the person who escalated it. Once a reasonable time has passed and no escalations stand, your Role gains control of those resources. You may spend them for your stated purpose, or further authorize others to. The Role you got this authorization from also loses this control, however a Role Lead of that Role may revoke the authorization at any time.

A Policy may change this process in any way, or directly authorize a Role to control spending of the Circle's resources.

4.2 Interpretation Authority

As a Partner, you may use your reasonable judgment to interpret this Constitution and anything under its authority. You may further interpret how these apply within any specific situation you face, and act based on your interpretations. However, you must interpret all Governance in the context of the Purpose and Accountabilities of the Circle containing it, and within any official interpretation rulings of that Circle or any Super-Circle thereof. You may not use any interpretations that conflict with that context or those rulings.

4.2.1 Conflicts of Interpretation

As a Partner, your interpretation of this Constitution and the Organization's Governance may sometimes conflict with another Partner's. When that happens, either party may ask the Secretary of any affected Circle to rule on which interpretation to use, and the Secretary is accountable for interpreting the Constitution and anything under its authority upon request. After a Secretary responds, everyone must align with that Secretary's ruling until the relevant text or context changes.

After ruling on an interpretation, a Secretary may publish the ruling and the logic behind it. If published, the Secretary of that Circle and any contained Circles must attempt to align with that logic in any future rulings. However, a Secretary may still contradict it once a compelling new circumstance renders the logic obsolete.