The Insiders
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Apr
4
Hmmm….
Posted by: Neal Yonson | April 4, 2007 | 10 Comments
The Ubyssey covers it well. My short version: non-campus students want U-Pass, AMS asked Student Court if they were members under the bylaws, Student Court said yes, AMS sent question back for clarification, Student Court says they are entitled to be AMS members.
The AMS Student Court says that co-op students should be members.
AMS Exec and Council disagree.
So what to do? They decide to “ignore” the whole question, rather than “reject” it. Apparently they will negotiate individually with those students.
I’m not gonna lie – I don’t understand how they can do that. What’s the point of a student court, exactly, if we can just ignore its ruling by putting our hands over our ears and pretending not to hear? What’s now to stop a co-op or commerce diploma student from going to student court on their own initiative to force the AMS to make them part of their membership? More troublingly, what’s stopping a co-op student from going to real court to seek a similar interpretation?
It was said at Council by the execs that “we couldn’t get a result we wanted.” That seems kinda wrong, no?
Comments
10 Comments so far
Glad you posted that.
I had some concerns about this as well. It reminds me of US federal politics in some ways. It also sets a bit of a precedent which I’m not conformtable with.
PS. See my previous point about Heppell being a rather excellent councillor (he’s a newbie yet doesn’t sheep vote)!
A Society’s Board of Directors (AMS Council) “must manage, or supervise the management of, the affairs of the society”, according to the Society Act, section 24(2)(a), subject to the Act and the society’s constitution and bylaws.
It’s not entirely clear to me, but the Board may need to be the ultimate authority. Allowing a body (the student court) to overrule the Board would then violate the Society Act. Where’s a law student when you need one?
Regardless, our bylaws are still enforceable in real courts.
What I took from the court ruling is that our bylaws are in worse shape than I thought, and need to be fixed. I would have liked to see another motion directing the Code and Policy committee to have a look at that. Part of the reason I didn’t move it myself is that we’re changing over the committees this week, and it would be good if the directive did not get lost in the shuffle.
I’m well aware that our Directors hold ultimate authority. But the establishment of a student court carries with it some element of good faith, no?
And, as you point out, doesn’t change the fact that, according to our own student court, we’re acting in violation of our bylaws.
Frankly, I’m mostly disappointed about it because it seemed that we had found an easy way to get around some of our bylaws… The bylaws say they mean what the student court says they mean, and the student court made a ruling that did not seem to conform with the bylaws (if i recall) but was an interpretation we could have freely used.
That said, Sheldon was pretty bothered by the ruling…
Just to respond to a couple points here (I’m not making an effort to respond to everything on this blog- just where it seems helpful to clarify points):
-We didn’t reject the ruling, we tabled it. The headline is inaccurate in that sense. There’s the practical problem of accommodating the co-op students, and then a more general problem with the bylaws. We made a very real suggestion that if council would like to see the bylaw issue addressed further than code and policies is an appropriate venue for that.
As to the practical problem….
-Tim says: “The AMS Student Court says that co-op students should be members.
AMS Exec and Council disagree.”
I think that’s a bit of a generalisation. The problem doesn’t lie with co-op students- that’s who the exec who originally asked the question almost 3 years ago (that’s right 3) were trying to accommodate. We still are. It gets stickier when you try to draw a line on AMS membership for those who are for example, continuing studies students. The university doesn’t have a good way of drawing this line either. There are pretty serious implications to charging AMS fees to students enrolling in a late night French cooking class- and they could relate to mandatory membership fee issues which some members of the provincial government have raised.
Our VP External is actively working with the university to negotiate and consult with co-op students to determine their interest in joining on to U-Pass. We’d like to get them on board as soon as possible. If we had to do it all over again, I’d suggest asking the court was the wrong starting point.
-The problem rests with the question and the process, and not student court itself. The first ruling violated, by many arguments, our own bylaws, and it’s my opinion that the questions were never structured well enough to start with.
On face value, perhaps a bit clumsy, but I think we’re acting in the most responsible fashion possible.
Jeff Friedrich
AMS President
To be clear, my concerns are process/bylaws based, and not outcome-based. Jeff, the quote of mine you quoted is probably misguided, and a little off-base, and wrong to impute an intention.
huh. what do you mean they’ll be negotiating with students individually? I’m going on coop this summer, and I sort of assumed I’ll be getting a upass. and since I apparently won’t, I’d like to know how to appeal that.
Frankly, I thought tabling it indefinably was a terrible semantic to use.
Basically Council gave a great big “fuck you” to the Student Court.
In all honesty, laws do not exist to conform to our pleasure and convenience, be they just student-made bylaws. If Council has a problem with the interpretation of the bylaws, as they clearly seem to, then its time to change the bloody bylaws, difficult though it may be (seriously, “its too hard” is not an excuse). However, Council does not have the authority to ignore the outcome of the Student Court. That flies in the face of the whole point of the Court.
I give great props to Sam for having the courage to stand up to the general will of the bureaucracy in making their own lives easier. Wishing things away is not a valid system of student government.
However, Council does not have the authority to ignore the outcome of the Student Court. That flies in the face of the whole point of the Court.
Actually, student court does not have the authority to tell Council what to do. It can enforce the AMS constitution, bylaws and code on individuals and on organizations like clubs and constituencies, clean up the wording of referenda, and (thanks to code) deal with AMS executive election appeals. Council, or any member of the society, may refer a question to it on how to interpret the bylaws or code, but no decision of the court takes effect until Council votes to receive it.
That flies in the face of the whole point of the Court.
Depends what the whole point of the Court is. As regards Council, it has an advisory role, and Council can ignore the advice. My take on their advice is that we have yet another section of the Bylaws that needs rewriting. And we have to be quick and/or careful, because, as I mentioned earlier, our bylaws can be enforced by real courts.
If we’d voted to receive the ruling, people signing up for something run out of Robson Square to make themselves a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) might have to pay $450 for the course, plus suddenly $200 for health and dental, $176 for a U-Pass, $39 to us, $5 to the Ubyssey, possibly some athlethics fees, and so on. Some of the courses are under $200, and simply wouldn’t be viable, and people might be tempted to sign up for an Italian or wine-tasting course just for the health benefits (which would screw us over in the end). Would downtown eastside residents taking Science 101 get stuck with AMS fees? I honestly don’t know.
I don’t like ignoring the student court, but we didn’t really have a practical alternative (we can’t run a referendum without sorting out the wording, and there’s a lot that needs changing).
I meant authority in the ideological sense. The Court exists to advise, true. Something like the PM existing to advise the Governor General seems to come to mind. Not quite as strict and important granted, but ideologically relevant nonetheless.
And I grant you that there’s be a huge number of issues to resolve, however they’d get resolved. Right now its just been brushed aside for expediency’s sake. That’s not right.
I’m not sure what the method of actually going about changing the current fee application and charging system would be, but with red tape being what it is, I somehow doubt that any such ruling would take effect overnight.