At a meeting on Aug. 19, the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) constitutional board rejected a constitutional challenge brought forward by fourth-year student Michael Monks who was contesting a July 28 board decision that he said was marred by breaches in procedure.
 
“Do you think your rulings are final if you didn’t follow proper procedure?” Monks asked the board in his challenge.
At the July 28 meeting in question the board rejected student Luke Siemens’ constitutional challenge of the appointments of Heather Murley, Donnie Northrup and Graham Perrin as CUSA Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) councillors.
Siemens argued that there was insufficient public notice given regarding the open positions. The board rejected his challenge.
 
Monks said the board violated four parts of the constitutional board bylaw.
 
The board chair, CUSA president Erik Halliwell, failed to ask the members of the board present if they had a conflict of interest, Monks said, a violation of section 5 of the bylaw.
 
The board also failed to make the written submissions of the challenger available prior to the meeting, with only the chair possessing a copy. Section 8.0 of the bylaw requires the submissions to be made available to the members of the board at least 48 hours beforehand, which Monks said is necessary for the members to conduct proper research.
The meeting was also closed to non-members of the board, which Monks said is a direct violation of section 6.0, which requires board meetings to be “open to all members of the Assocation.”
 
By implication, this caused the board to violate section 6(d) of the bylaw, which requires the decision to be announced to all in attendance.
 
Following a half-hour deliberation all five members of the board rejected Monks’ challenge. No justification was given, although a written justification will be made available shortly.
 
“Either they don’t agree that they made a mistake,” Monks said. “Or they’re pretty much saying if procedure wasn’t followed properly, they’re going to still uphold the decisions made.”
 
Halliwell declined to comment.