WordNet
n. the leader of a group meeting
Wikipedia
In a general sense, presiding officer is synonymous with chairman.
- The presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives is the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
- Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales
- Presiding Officer of the Northern Ireland Assembly
- Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
- Presiding Officer of the United States Senate
Other uses of the phrase include:
- Presiding Officer (ARB) is the officer in charge of one of the Administrative Review Boards run by the United States Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants, at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba
- Presiding Officer (Guantanamo Military Commissions), the officer acting in a judge-like role for Guantanamo Military Commissions.
Every Administrative Review Board, run under the authority of the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants, was commanded by a Presiding Officer.
Like the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, also run by OARDEC, the Boards form were modeled after the US Department of Defense's Army Regulation 190-8 Tribunals, but differed in its mandate.
All three procedures consisted of at least three officers, of whom the most senior was to be of field grade.
The AR 1900-8 Tribunals was to set out the details of how the US military was to comply with the US's obligations, under the Third Geneva Convention, to convene a " competent tribunal" to determine the status of captives whose status was in doubt. Competent tribunals, like the AR 190-8 Tribunal, are authorized to determine that captives are innocent civilians, lawful combatants, or combatants who have violated the laws of war. According to the Geneva Conventions, innocent civilians should be immediately released; lawful combatants should enjoy the protections of POW status until hostilities are over; and only those determined to have violated the laws of war can face charges for hostile activity.
The position of the George W. Bush Presidency was that captives apprehended during the " war on terror" were not eligible for the protections of the Geneva Conventions.
The United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush that captives could not be held indefinitely.
Captives were to receive annual Administrative Review Board hearings, to determine if they continued to pose a threat to the US, or whether they continued to hold any intelligence value.
In practice the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba contains over one hundred captives who do not receive annual Administrative Review Boar hearings, because their Combatant Status Review Tribunal had already been determined not to have been enemy combatants, or because an earlier Administrative Review Board had already determined that they should be released.
Usage examples of "presiding officer".
In those days the Senate's function was a mystery to everyone, including its presiding officer John Adams who simply could not fathom the duties of a vice-president.
He kept on doing so until a restive delegate, on a point of order, reminded the presiding officer that, after all, what they were here to do was to discuss the benefits the world might hope to gain from these extraterrestrials and their technology, not some philosophical question of an afterlife.
As soon as the presiding officer made a small speech, he turned over the floor—.
The presiding officer, wounded, fell clumsily against the brazier, and his fur coat caught fire.
The presiding officer, a fur coat pulled around his shoulders, was standing with his hands at a blazing brazier, his back to the prisoners.
With that he led me onto the Senate floor: a semicircle of desks faced the dais of the presiding officer.
That decision had already been made by Admiralty, Captain Malstrom, and the court-martial's presiding officer.
When they returned to the chamber, the presiding officer addressed Roger and Astro directly, asking formally whether they had anything to say before sentence was passed.