Sorry, folks

The Daily Cal reports on impeachment:

Among the alleged violations cited in the charge sheet is the failure to provide a written, audio or visual transcript of the campaign violations hearing during which Suken Vakil, the Student Action executive slate's designated spokesperson, made statements the Judicial Council later deemed perjurous.

Here, the JRP violation is that the Judicial Council failed to make this recording. But Sonya Banerjee wasn't chair at that hearing, Bobby Gregg was. Which makes blaming Sonya tough, because they aren't blaming any of the other justices on the grounds that Sonya was the chair. If their argument is that this means there wasn't enough evidence or some such, then their problem is with the decision of the Judicial Council, not Sonya's duties as the chair. And impeaching Judicial Council members for their decisions is not allowed, generally.

The charge sheet also accuses Banerjee of accepting a case after the filing deadline, mistreating Vakil as a witness, imposing improper punishments and violating defendants' rights as guaranteed in the ASUC constitution.

Accepting the case is done in a closed session, and the vote is not released. We don't even know if Sonya voted to accept this case, and as chair, she had no authority to force others to vote in certain ways. She could not subsequently accept a motion for dismissal on these grounds (which is the angle the impeachers are taking) because they don't introduce anything new. This part also makes some claims about interpretation of the bylaws, but there's no reason the Senate's interpretation should be accepted over the Judicial Council's, and there is very good reason why the Judicial Council's should be accepted over the Senate's: The Constitution says so.

The senate will hear the trial in open session and deliberate in closed session before voting on Banerjee's impeachment and removal in open session, Gupta said.

On what grounds can they close deliberations? None, of course. The Constitution doesn't allow session closure for this type of thing.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 11/09/2006 09:20:00 AM #
Comments (5)

. . .

Comments:

There's no particular reason for her to get impeached... unless, of course, following the rules is against some unwritten rule. She should wait it out, then when it blows over resign and give a big f-that to the ASUC.

# posted by  Anonymous : 11:30 AM, November 09, 2006

 

I'm shocked about all this. Only not . . . not at all.

My friend reports from a JC source that they think the votes are there for Sonya's impeachment.

What do you think, Beetle? What does she deserve?

# posted by  Anonymous : 11:37 PM, November 09, 2006

 

somehow i don't think the rest of the Judicial Council knows enough about the political dynamics of the Senate to give accurate information -- this is precisely because Sonya is doing her job to insulate them from this BS.

The votes aren't there. Student Action and this DAAP idiot are going to be caught with their pants down.

# posted by  Anonymous : 7:18 AM, November 10, 2006

 

I think they're better able to convince the SA kids who might object of this than unconstitutionally giving them the money. Afterall, the JC did admit some violations of rights on appeal, though I think the remedy for that is--shock--reversing themselves on appeal, not then turning around and also impeaching the JC chair.

I'm calling she stays by one vote Unterhalter-style. Who else is betting?

# posted by  Anonymous : 3:11 PM, November 10, 2006

 

Well, I know that the majority of Student Action will pre-determine the outcome of the trial before they ever hear her arguments. One of the Senators from the Unterhalter fiasco told me they did that.

The trial is just for show. But SA doesn't have the votes.

# posted by  Anonymous : 8:27 AM, November 11, 2006

 

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