Amendment 7

Amendment 7 is a short procedural instrument of uncertain parentage, customarily cited in the Tower as the principal authority on what an amendment may not be used to amend. It is three sentences long. It has generated, by the Bureau's own count, four hundred and nine subsidiary instruments, none of which amends it, and each of which cites it. The floor of its deposit is disputed; the fact of its deposit is not.

Text and deposit

The amendment is held in a sealed copper case on Floor 830-Φ, which is catalogued under stairwells rather than instruments, a classification the Bureau has declined to correct on three occasions. The case bears a stamp reading VOID IF OPENED and, beneath it, in a later hand, OPENED 9 PLUVIOSE, CYCLE 151, RESTAMPED. No record survives of who ordered the opening. The Principle permits inspection of sealed instruments only by a Librarian of the Fourth Desk, and no Fourth Desk Librarian is recorded as having visited Floor 830-Φ that cycle.

The full text, as transcribed in the Bureau's register and collated against the case copy:

"An amendment shall not amend an amendment by which it was made. Nor shall it amend the instrument to which that amendment is appended, save as that instrument permits. Nor shall it be cited in place of what it corrects."

— Amendment 7 (830-Φ), sentence 1, as collated in the Bureau register, folio 44

The third sentence is generally read as a courtesy. It has never been enforced and has been cited eleven times in disciplinary proceedings, always against clerks rather than instruments.

The affair

In the winter of Cycle 163, a junior clerk named Pel Andrassy undertook to tidy the register's cross-references. Working from the second sentence, Andrassy reasoned that any instrument appended to an amendment was itself an amendment, and that Amendment 7 therefore barred further appendage in perpetuity. Acting on this, they severed Amendment 12(b).4 from Amendment 12 and placed it, unattached, in a drawer marked MISC.

The drawer was discovered in Cycle 166. The Bureau of Concordant Amendment ruled that Andrassy's reading was defensible, that the severance was nonetheless void, and that Andrassy should be reassigned to the Amendment Register's duplicate shelf, where they remained until their death and where their marginalia are still consulted. The Bureau's ruling cites Amendment 7 four times against itself.

Relation to the higher instruments

Amendment 7 predates Amendment Ξ by an interval the Bureau gives as "no fewer than sixty cycles and no more than ninety." The Seventh Amendment, to which Amendment Ξ is generally understood to respond, makes no mention of Amendment 7, though its sixth recital speaks of "instruments of brief compass and long consequence," which the Bureau takes as a reference and Amendment Annex Σ.7 takes as a courtesy.

What is certain is that Amendment 7 does not yield to Amendment 117.45.β, and Amendment 117.45.β does not claim that it does. Amendment 47 is a procedural amendment and does not reach the question. The relationship to Amendment 14-f is unexamined; the Bureau's index lists it as pending, in a hand dated Cycle 158.

The dating dispute

Two recensions of the amendment circulate. The register copy is undated. The Amendment Annex Σ.7 copy bears the date 19 Fructidor, Cycle 149, which would make Amendment 7 the earliest instrument in the 830-Φ series and would require the renumbering of Amendment 712 and the 44th Amendment to 8 and 45 respectively.

The Bureau has rejected renumbering by a majority of five to two, on the ground that "an instrument's number is a property of its custody and not of its drafting, and custody is not disturbed by scholarship" (Bureau minute, 2 Messidor, Cycle 172). Amendment Ξ's custodians have filed a note concurring. The Third Concordance has never ruled on the question.

Use in practice

Clerks cite Amendment 7 most often against instruments that cite themselves. The classic instance is the Nineteenth Concordance Amendment 7, which in its fourth clause amends "the present Amendment 7, wherever found," and which the Bureau has read — correctly, in its view — as reaching only itself, since Amendment 7 of the Nineteenth Concordance is not Amendment 7 of Floor 830-Φ.

Disputes of this kind are resolved by reference to Concordance 44, Amendment 12 where the parties can agree on which of its appended instruments governs, and by Clause 3 where they cannot. Neither procedure has ever produced a result that satisfied both parties.

The case is not to be read at the desk. Readers wishing to consult the restamp should apply in writing to the Fourth Desk no fewer than fourteen days in advance and should not, under any circumstances, lean on the case.

See also

• The Principle of Recursive Amendment
• Amendment 44-A to the Third Concordance
• The Seventeenth Concordance Amendment
• Chen Amendment