Senate Clears Some Judicial Procedure Reforms, Axes Others

The ASUC Senate approved a bill Wednesday night that passed approximately two-thirds of proposed revisions to the Judicial Council’s operating procedures, the first reform since November 2005.

The senate decided to reject eight of the 21 new clauses proposed by the council, including a new rule that would have made defendants in council hearings liable for the actions of their spokespeople or representatives in the case.

While the Judicial Council is an independent branch of the ASUC, the senate has the ability to reject any proposed changes to council operating rules. All reforms must be approved by a majority vote of the senate.

Many senators who moved to strike specific clauses said they took issue with the language of certain reforms, pointing to a lack of

clarity.

“The executives know the implication of things being vague and ambiguous,” said Student Action Senator Vivienne Nguyen.

Certain judicial rules were debated after the current Student Action executive slate was disqualified over the summer after the council ruled that former Student Action Party chair Suken Vakil committed perjury while acting as a party spokesperson in a campaign violations trial.

APPLE Engineering Senator Brandon Chen, who motioned to strike a number of clauses, said he agreed that certain words in some of the proposed rules could have been interpreted too broadly by

the council.

“The majority of the clauses I motioned to strike out stated that the (council) could do things at ‘any time,’” Chen said. “(The phrase) was quite misleading.”

Council Chair Marisa Cuevas told senators at the meeting that the council was not able to act at “any time” because of other procedural rules that stipulated specific

deadlines.

Many of the votes to strike clauses were decided along party lines, with many members of Student Action, its affiliated parties and the Defend Affirmative Action Party voting to strike the clauses and members of CalSERVE and the other parties voting to keep the clauses.

Some members of the Student Action party said the voting pattern was a result of different levels of preparation among some of the senators.

“I don’t think everyone appreciated or understood the importance of the issue,” said Student Action Senator Jeff Manassero. “When these are approved, they are permanent.”

However, CalSERVE Senator Taylor Allbright said she and the other members of her party studied the proposed reforms and decided that they were in favor of the new procedures.

“CalSERVE took our time with the (procedures),” she said. “I fully supported the revisions.”

The Judicial Council now has the ability to consider the senate’s advice and resubmit new procedures at a future meeting. Cuevas said she and the rest of the council had not yet decided if they were going to submit new procedures.

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