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Gavel

Wooden gavel
Classification	Ceremonial mallet
Used with	Sound block

A gavel is a small ceremonial mallet commonly made of hardwood, typically fashioned with a handle. It is used almost exclusively in the United States in legislatures and courts of law^[a], but is used worldwide for auctions.

A gavel can be used to call for attention or to punctuate rulings and proclamations. It is a symbol of the authority and right to act officially in the capacity of a chair or presiding officer.^[1] It is often struck against a sound block, a striking surface typically also made of hardwood, to enhance its sounding qualities. According to tradition, Vice President of the United States of America John Adams used a gavel to call the very first U.S. Senate to order in New York in the spring of 1789. Since then, it has remained customary to tap the gavel against a lectern or desk to indicate the opening (call to order) and the closing (adjournment) of proceedings, giving rise to the phrase gavel-to-gavel to describe the entirety of a meeting or session. It is also used to keep the meeting itself calm and orderly.

The sound of the gavel strike, being abrupt to start and stop, and clearly audible by all present, serves to sharply define an action in time in a manner clearly perceivable by all, and to endow the action with practical as well as symbolic finality.

Etymology

In Medieval England, the word gavel could refer to a tribute or rent payment made with something other than cash.^[2] These agreements were set in English land-court with the sound of a gavel, a word which may come from the Old English: gafol (meaning "tribute").^[2]Gavel would be prefixed to any non-monetary payment given to a lord (for example: gavel-malt) and can be found as a prefix to other terms such as gavelkind, a system of partible inheritance formerly found in parts of the UK and Ireland. A gavel may also have referred to a kind of mason's tool, a setting maul that came into use as a way to maintain order in meetings.^[2]

Use in meetings

A gavel may be used in meetings of a deliberative assembly. According to Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, the gavel may be used to signify a recess or an adjournment.^[3][4] It may also be used to signify when a member makes a slight breach of the rules.^[5]

Demeter's Manual of Parliamentary Law and Procedure states that, in addition to an optional light tap after a vote, there are three other uses of a gavel:^[1]

• To attract attention and call a meeting to order. In most organisations, two taps raise and one tap seats the assembly; in others, two taps raise and three taps seat it.


• To maintain order and restore it when breached in the course of the proceedings. (Tap the gavel once, but vigorously).


• To be handed over to successors in office or to officiating officers as ceremonials, etc. (Always extend the holding end).

Improper uses include banging the gavel in an attempt to drown out a disorderly member.^[5] In this situation, the chair should give one vigorous tap at a time at intervals.^[1] Also, the chair should not lean on the gavel, juggle or toy with it, or use it to challenge or threaten or to emphasize remarks.^[1]

The chair should not be "gaveling through" a measure by cutting off members and quickly putting a question to a vote before any member can get the floor (in this connection, the chair should not use the gavel to improperly signify the end of consideration of a question).^[6] The expression passing the gavel signifies an orderly succession from one chair to another.

In addition to the use above during business meetings, organizations may use the gavel during their ceremonies and may specify the number of raps of the gavel corresponding to different actions.^[7][8]

The gavel is used in courts of law in the United States and, by metonymy, is used there to represent the entire judiciary system, especially of judgeship. On the other hand, in the Commonwealth of Nations, gavels have never been used by judges, despite many American-influenced TV programmes depicting them.^[9][10]

United States Congress gavels

United States Senate gavels.

The unique gavel of the United States Senate has an hourglass shape and no handle. In 1954, the gavel that had been in use since at least 1780 broke when Vice President Richard Nixon used it during a heated debate on nuclear energy, despite silver plates having been added in 1952 to strengthen it.^[11] Unable to obtain a piece of ivory large enough to replace the gavel, the Senate appealed to the Indian embassy. Later that year Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, vice president of India, visited the Senate and presented a replica of the original gavel to Nixon.^[12] The replica is still in use as of 2018.^[13]

In contrast to the Senate's, the gavel of the United States House of Representatives is plain wood with a handle. Used more often and more forcefully in the House, it has been broken and replaced many times.^[14]

In both houses, the gavel is generally sounded, that is, struck, once to mark the opening of the session, the adjournment, and to punctuate announcements of decisions by the body (that is, when the presiding officer announces that a resolution or motion is passed, the gavel is generally tapped once to declare the issue finished and to move on). Rather than shouting for order like in most Westminster style parliaments, the gavel, particularly in the House of Representatives, is often tapped repeatedly by the presiding officer to call the assembly to order or to restore order when cross-conversation has made it too noisy to proceed.

United Nations

In 1955 Icelandic sculptor Ríkarður Jónsson carved the Icelandic birch gavel and striking board used at the United Nations.^[15]

References

Notes

External links

Look up gavel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Media related to gavels at Wikimedia Commons