Monday, July 17, 2006
Oooh, I can see my house
Chris Page has a good op-ed criticizing Student Action for being... well... Student Action. My favorite note:
Up until a judge denied Student Action's request to freeze the operations of the Judicial Council last week, Student Action refused to respect and participate in the resolution process within the ASUC. It is only after they lost their court petition that the party suddenly became interested in working within the ASUC system. It's worth noting that Student Action hasn't been willing to really stand up for themselves, except through anonymous commenters on Calstuff. One would think that, being such soldiers of justice for the student will, they'd be a little more willing to do so.
The news story gets a great picture, probably during one of the recesses. Oren looks in a lot less pain than he did during most of the hearing. I guess I should do the corrections:
The ASUC Judicial Council heard an appeal of its controversial decision to disqualify four Student Action executives from office this weekend. In the eight-hour hearing that ended at 3 a.m. Sunday, presidential candidate Oren Gabriel and executive vice president candidate Vishal Gupta argued that the disqualification ruling breached ASUC rules and violated party Chair Suken Vakil's due process rights. Well, a lot of their argument claimed that the Judicial Council violated the Student Action Executive Slate's due process rights.
In an unusual move, two council members who were out of town flew in to hear the appeal case, although Councilmember Kate Feng was recused Saturday because of confidential "internal matters." Six of seven confirmed council members sat for the appeal. That's pretty inaccurate. It was for a personal conflict of interest. The nature of this conflict was not public, but it was not "confidential 'internal matters'" by any stretch of the imagination.
"Please do not undermine the decision made by thousands of students ... by issuing a judgment unprocedurally against Student Action executives in (this) case," Gupta said. Oh, the restraint it took to not object on relevance.
"I felt like (the defense) was just trying to muddle the water," [Oren Gabriel] said. "In terms of [Vishal Gupta] and I-we're very confident in our arguments." After, all, they're lawyer-approved. But consider this interesting contrast:
In Vakil v. Ratto, Bret Manley tried to get all justices but Carmel Levitan recused, because they were present at the original hearing. In the appeal, the Student Actioneers claimed that Levitan should not have been at that hearing, because she was not present at the original hearing. Also, in the appeal, they tried to get all four justices who were at Vakil v. Ratto recused, because they were present at the Vakil v. Ratto hearing.
But it was the defense that muddled the waters.
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