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LAW

The legal framework

What follows describes instruments in current use for other purposes. It is not legal advice, and every element will be settled with the notary and the lawyer engaged before a single member is admitted.

Freedom of association and internal discipline

A private association may adopt statutes that bind its members, admit and exclude according to its own procedures, and impose standards of conduct on those who have joined it. The courts review such decisions for procedural fairness and conformity with public policy, and do not substitute their own judgement on the merits of the rules the association has given itself. Religious orders, sports federations, private schools and professional associations under private law all rest on this foundation, and the discipline some of them impose is considerably heavier than what is proposed here. The regulated professions stay off the list, however often they are cited in arguments of this kind: their orders are public bodies created by statute, and their disciplinary power does not derive from voluntary membership.

The association takes the name «Il Fondaco Siciliano — Associazione per le arti e i mestieri», with the everyday name «Al-Funduq as-Siqilli», its registered office in the municipality of Catania, unlimited duration and no profit motive. The first step is the constitution of the association by registered private deed, which can open an account, receive contributions and sign the preliminary contract; the recognised foundation is constituted afterwards and receives the property.

Arbitration among the members

The members may agree that disputes among them in contractual and associational matters be decided by an arbitral panel of their choice, according to rules they have themselves adopted. The award so obtained is enforceable in Italy by decree of the court, under the code of civil procedure. The New York Convention of 1958, which more than one hundred and seventy States have ratified, concerns instead the recognition of foreign awards, and it matters here for a concrete rather than a theoretical reason: the masters come from Morocco, which is a party to that Convention, and a dispute with a party or assets abroad is the only one in which the reference has any effect. The mechanism, in any case, is the one on which sports justice and associational arbitration have rested for decades: a community runs a panel of its own within the general law, and the general law enforces the result without reopening the merits.

In the statutes the panel has three members and its jurisdiction stops where the parties’ freedom to dispose stops. Criminal matters, family law and the non-waivable rights of the worker are excluded in every case. The perimeter must be checked with counsel, because the arbitrability of employment disputes is a delicate matter and must be drawn with precision.

The limits, declared before anyone asks for them

• — No criminal jurisdiction. Offences are reported to the authorities as in any other place, and any rule of the house that claimed otherwise would be void, and rightly so.
• — No family law. Marriage, separation, custody and inheritance remain entirely with the State. The exclusion is absolute and is written into the statutes rather than left to practice.
• — No obligation on anyone who has not joined. The statutes bind the members and no one else, and cannot be invoked against a spouse, a child, a neighbour or a former member.
• — No exemption from mandatory rules. Labour standards, safety, taxation and the protection of minors apply in full.

These limits belong to the project, rather than being concessions extracted by a supervisory authority. An institution that asked for the first two would be asking for a State within the State, would be refused, and would deserve to be.

Work, and the point on which there is no compromise

Every employment relationship is framed under the construction industry agreement for the building phases and under the applicable agreements for workshop work, with safety training, regular contributions and verification of the right to work in Italy. In a province where the exploitation of agricultural labour is a known and monitored matter, an unimpeachable record on this point is worth more than any economic result.