RROR on nonmembers

[bosak@ort.Eng.Sun.COM (Jon Bosak)]

Following up on an item that arose in this morning's PAC meeting
regarding observers:

You will recall that I quoted the current (Ninth) edition of
Robert's at p. 95, which is indexed in that edition under
"Executive Session" and which is quite clear on the subject of
observers.  The question was where the corresponding language is
in the 1915 edition of RROR, which is the one that's available
online (http://www.ibiblio.org/bosak/rror/rror.zip).

The reference is in Article XIII, "Legal Rights of Assemblies and
Trials of Their Members," Section 73, which reads as follows:

  73. Right of an Assembly to Eject any one from its Place of
      Meeting.

      Every deliberative assembly has the right to decide who may
      be present during its session; and when the assembly, either
      by a rule or by a vote, decides that a certain person shall
      not remain in the room, it is the duty of the chairman to
      enforce the rule of order, using whatever force is necessary
      to eject the party.

      The chairman can detail members to remove the person,
      without calling upon the police. If, however, in enforcing
      the order, any one uses harsher measures than is necessary
      to remove the person, the courts have held that he, and he
      alone, is liable for damages, just the same as a policeman
      would be under similar circumstances.  However badly the man
      may be abused while being removed from the room, neither the
      chairman nor the society is liable for damages, as, in
      ordering his removal, they did not exceed their legal
      rights.

The important part relating to observers is, of course, just this:

      Every deliberative assembly has the right to decide who may
      be present during its session;

which, in typical early RROR style, is intended to be read
literally and from which all the implications spelled out in the
later edition are expected to be understood by the reader.

Jon