Chapter 47
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House's constitution has no remedy when a majority commit acts "injurious to the common weal".

In practice, the House has never functioned as stipulated in the Will and Testament (a document Shoghi Effendi and the House attach great importance to), as there is no living Guardian as "its sacred head". According to the Will and Testament, the Guardian had the authority to expel, at his own discretion, any House member who commits an act "injurious to the common weal"; which is not the same governing structure as expulsion by a majority vote of the House itself, as indicated in passage 4. If a situation arose where five or more members (a majority) needed to be expelled from the House, they could refuse to vote themselves out of the House. With their majority vote, it appears there would be no way to remedy the situation in the absence of a living Guardian as "its sacred head", also implied by Shoghi Effendi's in passage 3?
 
1)
The mighty stronghold shall remain impregnable and safe through obedience to him who is the Guardian of the Cause of God. It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice, upon all the Aghsan, the Afnan, the Hands of the Cause of God to show their obedience, submissiveness and subordination unto the Guardian of the Cause of God, to turn unto him and be lowly before him.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, The Will and Testament, p. 11

2)
By this body [the House] all the difficult problems are to be resolved and the Guardian of the Cause of God is its sacred head and the distinguished member for life of that body. Should he not attend in person its deliberations, he must appoint one to represent him. Should any of the members commit a sin, injurious to the common weal, the Guardian of the Cause of God hath at his own discretion the right to expel him, whereupon the people must elect another one in his stead.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, The Will and Testament, p. 14

3)
Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary principle which, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá has written, has been invariably upheld by the Law of God. "In all the Divine Dispensations," He states, in a Tablet addressed to a follower of the Faith in Persia, "the eldest son hath been given extraordinary distinctions. Even the station of prophethood hath been his birthright." Without such an institution the integrity of the Faith would be imperiled, and the stability of the entire fabric would be gravely endangered. Its prestige would suffer, the means required to enable it to take a long, an uninterrupted view over a series of generations would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives would be totally withdrawn.
-- Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 148

4)
Meanwhile the friends are informed that any member committing a "sin injurious to the common weal" may be expelled from membership of the House of Justice by a majority vote of the House itself.
-- The Universal House of Justice, Wellspring of Guidance, Messages 1963-1968, p. 54



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