Meeting Disturbances and Emergencies
Two personal experiences as a background
In 2014, a meeting of an organisation that had abandoned its previous meeting because of disorder was debating whether to appoint me as an independent chairman when one of those opposing my appointment had a heart attack, and the meeting was temporarily (but rather informally) adjourned for some 20 minutes while we waited for an ambulance to arrive to take the gentleman to hospital. After I was elected to chair the meeting one participant found it almost impossible to follow my rulings and I had to threaten to have him removed by the police (the Police station was, conveniently, next-door).
On 22 February 2011 I was eight minutes into chairing a meeting a block away from the Christchurch Cathedral. Following the earthquake, I had no hesitation in adjourning the meeting (it was resumed some three hours later when the meeting participants found safe refuge elsewhere).
A chairperson’s obligations and powers in the event of disorder
A chairperson has ultimate responsibility for the proper conduct of, and maintenance of order at, a meeting. Where one or more individuals disrupt a meeting, the chairperson may ignore them, ask them to leave or have them removed. As stated in a long-standing New Zealand Court decision, Wilkie v Kiely (1914) 33 NZLR 816 at 818 – “Clearly there must be an inherent power in every meeting to maintain order, otherwise the business could not proceed, and if a person persists in being disorderly he may be removed from the meeting. This, I think, exists as a right independent of the liability of a person who interrupts a meeting to be punished under [a relevant statute] or under the by-laws of [a local authority].” While the decision does not state that the Police may be called to remove the disorderly, that is a necessary corollary of the statement that a disorderly person “may be removed from the meeting.”
According to a 1969 English High Court decision (John v Rees [1969] 2 All ER 274), in order of priority the chairperson’s obligations are as follows:
- To make “earnest and sustained efforts to restore order,” if necessary, seeking assistance (which is consistent with the Wilkie v Kiely decision).
- To ask for a motion to adjourn, temporarily or for a longer period.
- If the meeting will not cooperate with the previous steps, “he should exercise his inherent power to adjourn the meeting for a short while,” in which event the chairperson must try to advise those present of the details of the adjournment (possibly difficult if the meeting is rowdy).
- If there is violence, similar steps should be taken, but “the greater the violence the less prolonged should be his efforts to restore order before adjourning.”
- The chairperson “… has not merely a power but a duty to adjourn in this way, in the interests of those who fear for their safety. I am not suggesting that there is a power to adjourn if the violence consists of no more than a few technical assaults and batteries. Mere pushing and jostling is one thing; it is another when people are put in fear, where there is heavy punching, or the knives are out, so that blood may flow, and there are prospects, or more, of grievous bodily harm. In the latter case the sooner the chairman adjourns the meeting the better.”
- A chairperson’s inherent power to adjourn a meeting to another date can only be exercised if he or she cannot otherwise regain order, and only “for the purpose of forwarding or facilitating the meeting, and not for the purpose of interruption or procrastination” and “the adjournment must be for no more than the necessities appear to dictate,” preferably a short time to see if a “cooling off” period will enable the meeting to be resumed.
A chairperson’s powers in the event of an emergency
Where physical factors make it impossible to conduct a meeting properly (as in the case of my 22 February 2011 meeting) or where a medical emergency arises (as in the case of the 2014 meeting) the chairperson may adjourn the meeting and, on resumption, it is the same meeting, not a new meeting.
Closing rather than adjourning a meeting
For the reasons outlined above, it is risky for a chairperson to try to close or adjourn a meeting early, unless that is really warranted:
- If the chairperson leaves as a way of trying to close the meeting, a member who disagrees with the chairperson’s action may immediately seek the election of a replacement chairperson, as long as a quorum is still present.
- In fact, only those present at a meeting, not the chairperson, have the legal right to close or end a meeting, but the normal convention is that the chairperson declares most meetings closed — with the deemed consent of the meeting.
For specific advice about any of the issues discussed in this article, please contact Mark at mark@nfplaw.co.nz.