AEGEE’s law collection, the Corpus Iuridicum (CIA), might look shorter and clearer soon. Two weeks ago, a CIA Reform Team consisting of several experienced AEGEE members, met in Brussels to trim the CIA without changing the content. Two members of the team, Wieke van der Kroef and Mathieu Soete, told the Golden Times, what they exactly did. The interview was conducted already two weeks ago, but due to communication problems it reached the Golden Times only now.
Golden Times: Who is at the meeting?
Wieke and Mathieu: The meeting consists of Diana Tupchiienko (Juridical Commission president), Ermanno Napolitano (Mediation Commission and former Juridical Commission) and us for the duration of the event. Atanas Nachkov (Juridical Commission) was here for the weekend and now Juridical Commission Subcom Joris Veenhuis joined us as well. Also the CD just came back from Alicante so I guess they will be able to assist us from today.
Golden Times: And how is the atmosphere, alone in the headoffice?
It’s been very relaxed so far, it was really quiet and we’ve had good weather so we even got to work outside in the garden for two days. In any case we’ve been making sure it all stays fun as well, with a good celebration and wonderful pancakes for Ukrainian Independence Day on 24th of August.
Golden Times: What did you achieve?
We are still working hard, so far we have a newly structured, rewritten Statutes, and we are working on the rest of the CIA as well now. We believe the texts will be easier to understand, but mainly the structure will be more logical, clearer, and most definitely easier to interpret for the Juridical Commission.
Golden Times: On Facebook it was written that you deleted whole paragraphs. How is it possible without changing the content?
Well, nothing is ever easy to delete, because it often has a long history in AEGEE and the CIA. We’ve discussed everything for days on end, but in the end, some things are just mentioned several times so we deleted them. Also we are moving certain paragraphs out of the Statutes for the simple reason that they should be in another part than the Statutes. Of course we have taken into account that the voting requirements for changing Statutes are different, but we will make sure nothing of the content will get lost or changed.
Golden Times: Did you get ideas to improve the statutes?
Yes. I think we have multiple simple examples. There are no more references to a vaguely described thing as a “body”; no more misunderstandings on whether AEGEE members mean locals or individuals; descriptions of Commissions all have the same structure; and mainly, the Statutes are only six pages instead of thirteen.
Golden Times: So what will happen at the Agora?
What will happen at the Agora… I suppose there will be a lot of discussion on the changes and maybe there is even too much for people to accept in one go. But we are more interested in what will happen through online discussion before the Agora. Even though we are very confident of the work we have done so far and that it has not changed the content, we are looking forward to fresh views of others, so we can be sure that it really becomes a good body of rules.
Golden Times: When will the online presentation and discussion start?
Soon, but we cannot tell a date yet.
Golden Times: Anything you would like to add?
We would like to ask everybody to look at the result of our work with an open mind. For sure, the Statutes and other documents will look rather different from what we are used to, but this was exactly the aim of the mandate given to this team by the Agora. Over the years the CIA had grown into such a long and complex document, that even the Juridical Commissions is sometimes struggling with making head or tail of it. So just take both versions, compare them, and let us know if we can still make some improvements.
