Student government’s Constitution Court last week rejected the bylaws for the new Recognition Review Committee until further revision and resubmission, stating that “numerous inaccuracies and mistakes” in the bylaws “are of great concern to the Court.”
The RRC, which was modeled after a memo by former ASUO President Adam Petkun, officially recognizes student fee-funded programs and makes sure they’re “advantageous to the cultural and physical development of students.” Only groups recognized by the RRC are eligible to receive funding.
The court listed 18 “mistakes and inaccuracies,” ranging from the RRC’s misunderstanding of its own authority to violations in its own elections clauses. The RRC submitted the bylaws on Nov. 1. The court called many sections in the bylaws unnecessary and others incomplete.
It initially reprimanded the committee for what it said was an “egregious” lack of documentation, but now RRC Chairman David Goward is using the same word to describe the court’s lacking distinction between policy and opinion.
Goward said the court is overstepping its boundaries.
“The chief justice says that the court in no way desires to legislate,” Goward said. “This is fucking legislation.”
The ruling came a day after the court ruled that the RRC’s use of an ASUO template, which groups used as a guide to create bylaws, “is not a necessary policy and thus not a mandatory standard format in the RRC’s review process.” The template is unnecessary because the ASUO Constitution already requires programs to follow many of the same guidelines.
The court placed a permanent injunction on the RRC’s request that 18 programs update their bylaws in accordance with the template and resubmit them. Goward said most of the groups have resubmitted their bylaws.
He said the 18 groups had to resubmit their bylaws.
“At no time did we require them to exactly adhere to the template, we only required them to adhere to the Executive Rules,” Goward said. “So that was their misunderstanding. … This is null and void.”
Chief Justice Tony McCown said that the injunction stands.
McCown, who wrote both per curium opinions, said the RRC excluded information “in order to follow the template.”
He stated that some processes were not included in the bylaws.
“This process is not declared or explained anywhere in the RRC bylaws,” McCown wrote in his ruling.
The court also found the RRC to be in violation of the constitution’s elections clauses. The clauses state “all members of the committee should be eligible for chairmanship,” but the Executive appointed Goward chairman. Goward told the Emerald that the decision to make the programs administrator the RRC chairperson was not based off Petkun’s memo, but also based on the effort of University administrators and student leaders.
“I have seriously spent about 15 hours a week for the first five weeks of this term getting this information in order,” Goward said. Having someone who is not “overly versed” in what is required might be “a little overreaching,” he said.
Goward said he would prefer the court distinguish between rules and opinions in the ruling.
“It’s ambiguous at best, and it’s going to take us time to sort through what parts are constitutional and what parts are just their own opinions.”
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