Bill Seeks ASUC Funds For President’s Legal Fees

A bill sent to the ASUC senate finance committee last night is asking for up to $22,679 to cover legal fees incurred in a court struggle this summer between ASUC President Oren Gabriel and members of the ASUC Judicial Council who served as representatives of the association.

The bill asks the senate to release ASUC funds to reimburse the legal counsel employed by Gabriel in Gabriel v. Associated Students of the University of California, which was heard in an Alameda County court in July.

If approved, the amount set by the senators will be taken from the ASUC Legal Defense Fund, which totaled $14,836 as of last semester according to the 2006-2007 ASUC budget.

Fourteen of 20 senators authored the bill, including the finance committee chair. All but two are members of Student Action and its affiliated parties, UNITE Greek and APPLE Engineering. One author is an independent and the remaining author belongs to the Defend Affirmative Action Party.

Gabriel said he needed his own legal counsel because he was not an ASUC official at the time of the suit and thus could not be represented by an ASUC lawyer. He said the legal action was essential to safeguard the function of the ASUC.

“The Judicial Council was violating the ASUC bylaws and their own rules of procedure so in order to make sure that the will of the students was followed, it was necessary to hire legal counsel,” Gabriel said.

Some senators said it would not be fair to use student money to pay for the legal counsel used by Gabriel in the case, as the Student Action executive slate had not yet exhausted all methods within the association to resolve the conflict.

“Since this legal action was unnecessary and the expense was unnecessary, I don’t think the ASUC should have to pay for it,” said CalSERVE Senator Taylor Allbright.

Legal counsel was hired and paid for by the ASUC to represent the Judicial Council members, as the case was filed against them as ASUC officials, said council chair Sonya Banerjee.

Gabriel, however, was not an official within the association at the time he filed the case, as his term as senator had expired and his presidential term had not yet been confirmed.

“He wasn’t acting in his capacity as an ASUC official,” Banerjee said. “(Our lawyer) was hired to defend us as members of the Judicial Council—if we had been sued as individuals, then we would have to have sought our own lawyers.”

The Judicial Council disqualified the Student Action executive slate in June. On July 7, before the council heard the appeal filed by the candidates, Gabriel took the issue to the Alameda County Superior Court.

Alameda County judge Winifred Smith dismissed the case three days later, stating that all avenues to solve the disagreement within the association had not been pursued.

A Judicial Council ruling reinstated the candidates July 29.

The funds being requested would go directly to Barg Coffin Lewis & Trapp, the legal firm employed by Gabriel in the case.

A correction to this article can be found here.

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