Saturday, July 29, 2006
Last word
This'll probably be the last thing I'll post on the decision, but Ben has the money quote:
...the fact that the appellants made an abrupt attempt to withdraw from this appeals process after claiming a lack of Council jurisdiction, and the fact that they tried to submit evidence that had been directly tampered with, which leads us to question the originality and veracity of other evidence submitted by the appellants, points to an effort by the Student Action Executive candidates to subvert the judicial process. We believe this to be a very serious offense, but given the circumstances these candidates cannot be punished. However, Mr. Vakil is still held in contempt of Council, and as a result of his deceitful actions during ASUC v. SAES, he can never again appear before the Council per JRP 4.15.3.2. We condemn Vakil's actions and, as the evidence shows to be the case, the Student Action Executive candidates' knowing acceptance of Vakil's dishonesty. We maintain that had the evidence brought forth in Ratto v. Vakil about party chalking tactics been presented in ASUC v. SAES, it is likely that the Judicial Council would have arrived at a more severe judgment. Regardless, we hereby re-instate Oren Gabriel, Vishal Gupta, Joyce Liou, and Jason Chu into the 2006 ASUC Elections. The Council will soon meet to consider certification of these election results and to administer the executive oaths of office. The point here is that SA got off on a technicality. Now, I want to stress that I don't have any problem with folks getting off on technicalities. Technicalities in one situation can be grave injustices in others, and I'd rather not leave the discretion as to which is which in the hands of the Judicial Council. But I want to make this point because I don't want people to see SA as being vindicated by this decision. They lied. The tampered with evidence. They refused to follow the procedure until the court made them. Had Andy filed charges a little earlier as an appeal, or had the Judicial Council ruled on his other charges, they would still be disqualified.
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