Thursday, October 19, 2006
The first evasion
It took the same question three times from David Wasserman before the Executives would actually justify their comparison to the DAAP case. Finally, they admitted that there really wasn't a precedent in terms of paying out the money, since the DAAP case ended in a settlement, while this is just a handout that, supposedly, would be just.
While Yvette Felarca praised Oren and co. for standing up for student rights and student votes by fighting the same fight they did, a few senators decided to point out an odd fact about Student Action's praise for DAAP's fight: In 2004-5, Student Action was adamantly opposed to giving DAAP a dime. (Felarca lied that this was not the case. In the end, the bill to pay the settlement passed unanimously, but not because Student Action believed it was the right thing to do) If you want to learn more about the DAAP case, check out then-Judicial Chair Mike Davis's account in the Patriot. Here are the punchlines:
The Judicial Council never admitted wrongdoing in disqualifying DAAP, as Oren claimed. However, they felt they were bound by the bylaws written by the Senate to disqualify DAAP. This is a common theme. The bylaws are written by the Senate and Executives so that the Judicial Council has no choice but to act in unpopular and potentially unjust ways, and then everyone blames the Judicial Council for following the rules that other people wrote. This year, for instance, the Judicial Council followed the bylaws too closely, without recognizing that the incomptetence behind them made such an effort unconstitutional in spirit. On appeal, they recognized this and reversed the ruling. (Oren's assertion that the Judicial Council violated the JRPs and bylaws has no basis in any established decision, and the appeal affirmed that they were followed)
In the DAAP case, there was no unconstitutionality, so the Judicial Council and President worked together to change the poorly-written rules to allow the Judicial Council the flexibility it needed to not disqualify DAAP. Once again, the responsibility for the result belonged to Senate and Executives in writing the bylaws.
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