A recent decision by the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) constitutional board to void changes made to the CUSA constitution at an April 21 council meeting has been met with controversy.
The constitutional board voted May 28 to repeal changes made to the association’s constitution and one bylaw, finding that not enough public notice was given prior to the passing of these motions.
Making an amendment to the CUSA constitution requires public notice be given via email, posters, and by notification on the association’s website at least 10 days before the council meeting, according to the CUSA constitution.
Computer science councillor Justin Campbell, who submitted the challenge against the motion, said the only advertisement he saw in the days leading up to the April 21 council meeting was one poster in the front office of CUSA. He also said the association’s website and the email addresses used to communicate with students were offline for more than a week before the meeting.
“I was taken aback when we changed this fundamental document without consulting or giving notice to the people we represented,” Campbell said.
CUSA vice-president (internal) Ariel Norman said CUSA will not recognize the decisions made by the board at the May 28 meeting as legitimate because the board went against CUSA bylaws by hearing the challenge.
Norman, who appeared at the meeting to argue against Campbell’s challenge being heard, said the current constitutional board was not the proper forum to make these changes. She said the changes would have to be made through this year’s council.
According to CUSA bylaws, constitutional challenges can only be heard by the constitutional board within that CUSA year, which ends April 30. At the end of each CUSA year, the current council and board are dissolved and new ones are formed based on the results of the general election.
Norman said because the challenge was submitted May 6 and concerned decisions made during the previous year, the board broke CUSA bylaws by hearing the challenge. For this reason, she said CUSA will continue forward with the amendments made at the April 21 council meeting.
Norman said CUSA consulted the association’s lawyer, who agreed with this interpretation of the bylaw and advised that the board would be opening itself up to legal risk by hearing the challenge.
Michael De Luca, a public affairs councillor and chair of the CUSA constitutional board, said the May 28 ruling is final because the executive and council do not have the authority to rule out decisions made by the board.
De Luca said the constitutional board has the authority to hear and rule on challenges against actions made in previous years as long as the challenge is submitted within the current CUSA year. He said the bylaw only prevents the board from hearing challenges submitted during the previous CUSA year.
“If something passed last year that is grossly unconstitutional, just because the year ends doesn’t mean the matter goes away and we have this unconstitutional piece of legislation in our association,” De Luca said. “We have to be able to review that.”
The motions passed at the April 21 council meeting changed the constitutional requirement for the passing of any motion to amend the CUSA constitution, a bylaw or a policy, as well as a sub-section of the bylaw regulating the selection of proxies for councillors unable to attend meetings.
The amendments to the constitution changed the requirement for the passing of any motion to amend the constitution from a five-ninths majority vote to a two-thirds majority vote by all members of council, any motion to amend a bylaw from a simple majority to a two-thirds majority vote by all members of council, and any motion to amend a policy from a simple majority vote to a two-thirds majority vote by all councillors present at the meeting.
Under CUSA bylaws, councillors unable to attend a meeting must provide a proxy to sit in his or her place. The change to this bylaw would prevent councillors from selecting a student in a different constituency as a proxy during the summer semester, as councillors are restricted from doing during the fall and winter semesters.
