South Africa has formally objected to the fast track used to get OOXML to the brink of ISO standardization.

South Africa, which has given the world Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu, is one of the so-called “P” members of JTC 1 – meaning it’s got enough clout to delay or possibly derail ISO’s standardization of Microsoft’s precious OOXML file format.

It’s also got a bias against OOXML – having recently made the rival OpenDocument Format its national standard since it is “demonstrated to be significantly superior.”

In a letter to ISO’s secretary general, the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has lodged an appeal claiming that “an important question of principle” is involved and that “the reputation of ISO/IEC is…at stake.”

SABS says it “cannot accept the outcome of a process” that blatantly ignored the rules. And it challenges the legitimacy of the vote agreeing to ISO’s standardization of OOXML.

“It is our opinion that the process followed during all stages of this fast track has harmed the reputations of both ISO and IEC,” the letter says, not to mention “the reputation of all member bodies of the ISO and IEC.”

Disrepute is grounds for appeal and there is still a narrow slip of time for other countries to follow.

SABS objects to the JTC 1 process being used “to circumvent consensus-building” as well as the “ability of large multinational organizations to influence many national bodies with the resultant block-voting overriding legitimate issues raised by other countries.”

It takes particular exception to the ballot resolution meeting (BRM) held from February 25 to 29 when only 67 of the thousand-odd comments attached to the OOXML specification were aired – let alone resolved – for lack of time, winding up in a blanket vote to accept the thing pretty much as is and clean it up later.

SABS complains that national bodies were required to “write a blank check approving the proposals of the authors of the proposed standard, which is inappropriate for any standard, never mind one that has generated considerable controversy.”

It tells ISO to look no further than the magnitude of the spec and the number of edits required to realize that what was “submitted by ECMA and…modified by the BRM is not ready for fast track processing.”

Even before the BRM was held no mandated discussion of OOXML’s contradictions with other ISO standards (like ODF) was allowed and no copy of the final standard was circulated within the prescribed 30 days of the BRM because it doesn’t exist.

So since the rule book was thrown out, SABS “challenges the validity of a final vote [on April 1] that we contend was based upon inadequate information resulting from a poorly conducted BRM.”

By the way, Microsoft itself isn’t planning to fully support OOXML until Office 14, whenever that vaporware deigns to show up, but surely it will be after Office 2007 Service Pack 2, set for the first half of next year.

Microsoft said last week that Office 2007 SP2 would support ODF, a move probably attributable to the European Commission’s investigation of Office. Microsoft needs the ISO mantle to keep ODF-tempted government accounts in line.