APAPE REGULATION

CHAPTER I

Definition, Objectives, Membership and Applicable Law
Article 1 Definitions

The Portuguese Association of Arrhythmology, Pacing and Electrophysiology (APAPE) is a specialized association of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology, endowed with scientific, administrative and financial autonomy and has its headquarters in Lisbon, Campo Grande, number twenty-eight.

Article 2 Objectives

1. The purpose of APAPE is the study, investigation and promotion of other educational and scientific activities in the medical, surgical, technological and organizational aspects of Arrhythmology, Pacing and Electrophysiology.

2. The APAPE may, in pursuing the above objectives, organize and disseminate scientific meetings or training courses, as well as promote the publication of scientific, informative or didactic materials, in paper, digital format, or on web platform. If this results in income, it should be aimed at financing the above mentioned APAPE objectives.

3. O Registo Nacional de Electrofisiologia e Pacing compreende várias áreas temáticas. É da responsabilidade da APAPE o seu desenho, implementação, desenvolvimento, acompanhamento, suporte e divulgação.

3. The National Registry of Electrophysiology and Pacing comprises several thematic areas. APAPE is responsible for its design, implementation, development, monitoring, support and dissemination.

Article 4 Applicable law

APAPE is regulated firstly by its own Statutes in all that is not provided for therein, the Statutes of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology should apply, in particular Articles 26 to 37.

CHAPTER II

Membership
Article 5 Categories of members

1. Membership requirements:

a) The members of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology;

b) Other persons, medical or otherwise, interested in the respective subject, and their number may not exceed two fifths – 2/5 – of all its members.

2. APAPE may have the following categories of members:

a) a) Effective members-Doctors with the title of Specialist in Cardiology, Pediatric Cardiology or Heart Surgery and with recognized activity in the area of Arrhythmology, Pacing or Electrophysiology. In exceptional cases, others categories that perform relevant work in these areas may be admitted.

b) Aggregate members Individual affiliation

1.Doctors

2.Non doctors

c) Collective affiliates

e) d) Honorary members

3. Articles 4, 5, 7 to 10 of the Statutes of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology shall apply mutatis mutandis.

The members are admitted in the General Assembly of APAPE, with the favorable vote of at least two thirds – 2/3 – of the present voters.

Article 7 Membership fees

The amount of annual dues is fixed in the General Assembly of APAPE, being differentiated according to the type of member.

CHAPTER III

Organizationn
Article 8 Direction board

APAPE has the following corporate boards:

a) The General Assembly

b) The Direction board

Article 9
Constitution and Functions of the Board of the General Assembly

Constitution of the Board of the General Assembly

The Board of the General Assembly is composed of three effective members, being a Chairman and two secretaries.

Duties of the Board of the General Meeting

a) To call the General Meetings by sending to all the Members, by post, information about the place, the agenda and the Assembly time, with two weeks in advance,

b) To direct the General Meetings.

c) To organize the elections, according to the following election regulations:

1.The date of the elections will be communicated to the members at least ninety days prior to the date of the election, indicating the opening of the period of the nomination.

2. Candidates for the position of President-Elect, may be the personalities who have formalized their candidacy, by delivering a program letter and document proving the existence of a minimum of twenty signatures of Effective Members to the Chairman of the Board of the General Assembly.

3. The Board of APAPE may also designate a Personality to formalize its candidacy for the position of President-Elect, with the Chairman of the Board of the General Assembly, requiring this Personality only to present a programmatic letter and dismissing the twenty Effective Member signatures.

4. The period for nomination shall close 60 days before the date of the elections.

5. The Chairman of the Board of the General Assembly shall inform the members, at least thirty days before the date of the Elections, of the candidates for the position of President-Elect.

6. The incumbent President-Elect shall present in the elections immediately following and at least thirty days before the date of the Elections, a nominal list for the Governing Bodies. This list shall include, on the front of each position, the name of the Effective Member applying for that position.

7. In the event that the list proposed by the President-Elect is not approved by the General Assembly, its work shall be suspended to continue at a date designated by the Chairman, who shall present a direction board within a maximum period of one month to be voted by the General Assembly.

8. If this second list is not approved by the General Assembly, its work shall be suspended to continue at a date designated by the chairman and the APAPE Board shall propose a new President-Elect, who, together with his nominal list shall submit for approval by the General Assembly.

9. Within the same period at least thirty days prior to the date of the Elections, alternate nominal lists may be submitted, provided that they are subscribed by a number of twenty Effective Members. Proof of acceptance of the application by the Effective Member will be made individually and in writing, and this documentation will be sent simultaneously with the proposed list.

10. In the week following the closing of the period for the submission of lists, the Chairman of the Board of the General Assembly shall communicate by mail individually to all APAPE Members, the lists submitted and the programmatic content of the nominations.

11. The Board of the General Assembly shall be responsible for recognizing the eligibility and acceptance of the candidacy by the proposed Member and also for studying any contestation of the elections.

12. When the lists are circulated, the respective ballot papers will be sent by mail eight days before the elections.

Article 10
Convening of Extraordinary General Meetings

Extraordinary General Meetings may only be called by at least 20 effective members.

Article 11
Constitution and operation of the General Assembly

The constitution and operation of the General Assembly shall be governed by the provisions of Articles 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 of the Statutes of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology, without prejudice to the provisions of the previous articles of this Chapter.

Article 12
The Constitution of the Board

The Board consists of seven members: the President, the Secretary, the Vice President of Arrhythmology, the Vice President of Pacing, the Vice President of Electrophysiology, the Treasurer, and the President-Elect.

Article 13
Administrative, Scientific and Financial Autonomy

1. APAPE shall have administrative, scientific and financial autonomy.

2. APAPE has administrative autonomy in the acts of day-to-day management, translated into the competence of the members of the Board of Directors and the General Assembly to authorize the execution of expenses and their payment and to carry out, within the same scope, definitive and enforceable administrative acts.

3. The scientific autonomy of APAPE is reflected in the power, in its own right, to enroll in similar International Societies, to promote registrations, to organize meetings or to treat and to publish subjects about their respective subjects within the scope of their objectives.

4. The administrative and scientific autonomy is also reflected by the possibility of managing the APAPE website independently, by someone designated by its management.

5. The financial autonomy of APAPE is expressed, inter alia, through the existence of its own budget and accounting, autonomous bank accounts and the power to sign checks and to move the respective bank accounts.

6. In the movement of bank accounts and in the use of APAPE checks, two signatures are mandatory, one of the President, or of another member of the Board by delegation of powers, and the other of its Treasurer or the Treasurer of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology.

7. Financial autonomy also translates into the possibility of entering into fixed-term contracts with professionals with specific functions within APAPE, previously established at a Board meeting, duly accounted for in the annual budgets and subsequently approved at the General Assembly.

8. APAPE is considered an autonomous cost center, and the eventualities established in the previous number should be included in the General Accounting of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology.

Article 14
Accountability

The Board of APAPE annually presents to the Board of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology the private budget for the following year and the Annual Report and Accounts for the purposes set forth in the respective Statutes of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology.

Article 15
Final and transitional provisions

1. These Regulations may only be amended at an Extraordinary General Meeting, expressly convened for this purpose and in accordance with the Statutes of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology.

2. In matters not expressly regulated in these Regulations, the provisions of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology Statutes shall apply.

Article 16
Implementation

These Regulations shall enter into force after approval by the APAPE General Assembly.