Summary

  • On 28 August 2026 the AFRINIC Board of Directors constituted the Policy Development Appeal Committee — five named members, appointments "effective immediately" for a term running until 31 December 2026 — without any "consent of the Receiver" recital in the retrieved instrument text, while the 24 August 2026 CEO-designate announcement expressly recited that consent for Mike Silber's appointment (AFRINIC; AFRINIC announce list).
  • The remedy the committee adjudicates is anchored in Consolidated Policy Manual s.3.5, not in located bylaws text: an appeal requires first attempting resolution with the PDWG Chairs, support from three Working Group participants, filing within two weeks of public knowledge, and reaches only PDWG Chair decision-making process (CPM).
  • Terms of Reference v4 (23 August 2021) cap the committee's remit at process review — the committee "cannot substitute itself to the PDWG or its Co-Chairs" — and the four-month 2026 term deviates from the ToR's ordinary one-calendar-year term (ToR v4; committee page).
  • No located bylaw or policy provision supplies a general member appeal against Board acts, registry determinations, or receiver actions; the receiver's own termination motion SC/COM/MOT/000757/2025 remains undecided on the public record as of 27 September 2026 (instrument chain).

The instrument chain at issue is short and datable. AFRINIC, the Regional Internet Registry for Africa, has operated since February 2025 under receiver Gowtamsingh Dabee, appointed by the Supreme Court of Mauritius. His own application to terminate the receivership (SC/COM/MOT/000757/2025, filed 8 October 2025) was heard with judgment reserved per AFRINIC's 12 March 2026 member update; at publication no discharge or termination order was located on the public record (AFRINIC news; BTW).

Against that backdrop, three Board acts in 2026 frame the recitation pattern. On 2 March 2026, constituting the Bylaws Review Committee, the Board wrote: "the Board with the consent of the Receiver, has resolved." On 24 August 2026 the CEO-designate announcement carried the same formula. On 28 August 2026 the Appeal Committee constitution did not. The distinction matters because the Appeal Committee is precisely the organ a member would turn to for a remedy: its creation was drafted as if it were ordinary policy-layer business, not receiver-supervised executive action.

Two cautions bound that reading. First, absence of a recital in retrieved text is not proof that consent was not sought or given; the underlying Board resolution record is not published. Second, whether Receiver consent was legally required for this act cannot be established from the published instruments.

What the committee can hear is narrower than its name suggests. CPM s.3.5(1) requires an appellant to have first discussed the matter with the PDWG Chair(s) or the PDWG, and permits an appeal only if supported by three Working Group participants who took part in the discussions. CPM s.3.5(2) sets a two-week filing window from public knowledge of the decision and authorizes the committee to issue a report to the Working Group and direct that the Chairs' decision be annulled if the Policy Development Process was not followed.

CPM s.3.5(3) provides a separate recall route for a Working Group Chair, requiring a written request supported by at least five other Working Group members. By its terms the remedy does not extend to resource-allocation decisions, membership termination, contractual disputes, Board acts generally, or receiver actions.

The committee's standing charter confirms the cap. ToR v4, approved 23 August 2021, fixes a five-member composition — one NRO NC/ASO-AC member from the AFRINIC region, one former Director, one Governance Committee member, one former PDWG Chair and one active PDWG participant — with quorum of three, majority-rule decisions, and a review mandate confined to the five enumerated grounds of process failure under CPM s.3.5(2): misapplication or misinterpretation of the CPM, irrationality and procedural impropriety, disproportionality, unfairness, or failure to ensure objections were adequately addressed.

The 28 August 2026 appointments map one-to-one onto those five seat profiles: Silvio Cabral (former AFRINIC Director), Sami Salih (former PDWG Co-Chair), Oluwaseun Ojedeji (active PDWG participant), Nitin Kelawon Sookun (NRO NC/ASO AC representative) and Eddy Lareine (Governance Committee representative). The ToR text on the committee page still contains a stale transitional reference to 31 December 2021, so whether the operative ToR is exactly v4 is bounded by what the page links.

The time structure is compressed from both ends. The committee term ends 31 December 2026 — roughly four months from constitution, deviating from the ToR's ordinary 1 January–31 December calendar year — and the filing window is two weeks from public knowledge of the challenged decision. A member with a grievance against a PDWG Chair's process has a narrow, sponsor-gated channel; a member with a grievance against the Board, the registry, or the receiver has none located in the instruments published to date.