Is it EVER okay?

Chinafoot

What the hell....can you not just debate his points instead of dragging up old threads? :rolleyes:

Personally I think that the college should be able to over-turn the Union but only in extreme circumstances. But then of course that leads to debate on what justifies an extreme circumstance, which causes problems again.

But I do think that if the council makes a decision then the SU president should have to follow that decision. If he refuses he should step down.

Byrno

panda100 wrote:

In med soc class rep election every year everyone in the class writes who they want to be class rep on a piece of paper,their first choice and second choice...or if there is only one person running they vote yes or no.Then a group of 5 or so people count them up at the top of the class and someone is democraticallly elected. I cant see how that is so tough for each class to do.Its an improvemnet on what is evidently going on at the moment with class reps just putting their name down and then admitting to being 'unrepresentative of their class to say the least'

Panda, that has only happened once in my class.

In Foundation Year medsoc came in looking for people to go for class rep and at the same time looking for lads to do the pom pom dance. I went down intending to do both, got taken aside for the dance (thus starting my love of dressing up in women's clothing and dancing on Grafton St:) ). However when they were finished telling us what the story was myself and another lad went over to go for class rep but we were told that the three girls who had gone down were now class rep without any vote. (Btw the three of them did a great job but still...)

In First Med three people went for class rep, we had a vote on which two we wanted. The three of them got pretty similar amounts of votes so medsoc decided that all three would be class reps, which is fair enough to be honest.

This year medsoc came in looking for class reps. Two lads went down for the two spots and then it was just decided that they would be the class reps. No yes/no vote or anything.

Whilst only having experience of my own class I have never seen any evidence that medsoc is any better at democracy than the SU. Not that I'm saying that the system that the SU use is the best.

EDIT: posted up a previous reply here before, sorry! Stupid Irish Broadband!

panda100

peachypants wrote:

What the hell....can you not just debate his points instead of dragging up old threads? :rolleyes:

.

Well its just that his credentials as a lecturer and an informed lecturer were highly dubious last year so I dont want to debate his points when I dont know at all if they are fact or not. It would seem pretty pointless.

John_C

peachypants wrote:

But I do think that if the council makes a decision then the SU president should have to follow that decision. If he refuses he should step down.

That's my opinion too. He's a member of two seperate organisations and there is a conflict between them. He should either resign from his SU position or from the finance committee.

To answer the original question, the college is not entitled as I see it to interfere with the SU decision and the appeals board should throw out the college's request.

Chinafoot

panda100 wrote:

Well its just that his credentials as a lecturer and an informed lecturer were highly dubious last year so I dont want to debate his points when I dont know at all if they are fact or not. It would seem pretty pointless.

The nature of the post and the comments made by the poster were what caused the reaction. Not necessarily his "credentials".
Like the thread about declaring your affiliation, things work on the honour system. If he says he's a lecturer then we should take him at his word. He can PM one of the mods to confirm it in some way but he shouldn't have to say which lecturer he is on this forum.

He had the decency to respond to your argument in a mature manner, why can't you do the same for him?

If it's a case of you not being able to refute what he says then admit that instead of trying to discredit him with very old threads. Very petty.

/end mod-mode (old habits die hard eh?, I'll leave it to Hulla and Trucks from now on.

Anyway, if there is a conflict of interests for James Carroll then he should stand down on one of them.

If he isn't going to follow the decisions made by the council then what is the point of having the council?

hullaballoo

Panda, peachy's right. If he proffers to be a lecturer, then until it is proven otherwise, we should assume this to be so. If you doubt him, take it to PM.

I'm actually surprised at you that you would bring the standard of the thread into an accusatory mess.

Now, let's pick up where we left off - a proper discussion.

Stabshauptmann

While Mr Carroll is he SU president, and he can be mandated to act certain ways within the boundaries set down by the committee.
The finance committee is not under the jurisdiction of the SU.
It doesn’t answer to the SU.
When sitting on the finance committee Mr Carroll is bound first and foremost by it’s rules and secondly by any SU mandate.

If the finance committee forbid Mr Carroll from revealing privileged information then IMO he should ignore the mandate as it could very well jeopardize the future involvement of any SU president on the finance committee.

singingstranger

While all of your thoughts are completely understandable, Kaptain, and the argument that carrying it out would jeopardise SU involvement was made at the Council debate itself, Council still decided to pass the motion.

I would imagine that James's argument for not following it would be something akin to your first paragraph - indeed, the SU President does not have an entitlement to a seat on the Committee and only sits there as a personal appointment by Hugh Brady. One could argue that because he is there as Brady's appointment that he should serve Brady's goals. I think the key problem here - and the crux upon which I would imagine the IAB's decision would have been based on today - was whether Hugh appointed James Carroll, personal capacity, to the Committee, or whether he appointed James Carroll, SU President, to the seat. If he was appointed in personal capacity, like he may have appointed any other student, then I could see the merits for going against it, but regardless, the motion was still passed by Council and James was therefore obliged to follow it regardless.

humbert

I'm not going to get into "quote wars" but I think is ridiculous to suggest that the SU could be more dangerous than Brady if they “wanted” to be, I think that Eoin Macollamh clarifies this very well, despite the attempted character assignation this still stands. I think that the suggestion that the union would better represented by a “select few” is funny given the recent complaints by you about certain faculties being unrepresented in the SU. About the chip on your shoulder remark, I dare you to post something about the union without including some condescending or derogatory remark about vainglory, go on, everyone’ll be shocked:)

I'm not going to trawl back through this thread but if the SU council wants Mr. Carroll to personally furnish them with the minutes as opposed to getting them from the finance committee I'd have to agree with Kaptain Redeye.

Eoin Macollamh

Just to add to the topic at hand:

I would like to see the Students' Union ally itself more closely with the trade unions representing academic and non-academic staff at UCD. I'm a SIPTU member and I can tell you that the anger over what's gone on has been simmering for the past two years and may yet result in some sort of industrial action. Indeed, one of the things that the union and the staff in general find to be outrageous is the fact that elected staff members of the Governing Authority, whether members of trade unions or not, have not been given access to the minutes of the Finance Committee.

Given that the Finance Committee is a subset of the Governing Authority (from which it derives all of its power), it is outrageous for members of the GA not to be given full information about the finances of the college. There is no statutory basis, as far as I know, for such secrecy and it prevents the GA from operating in a transparent way. Our representatives have no idea: how much was spent on the WAG report, what kind of bonuses have been paid to the presidentially-appointed VPs et al., what kind of money was paid to the two professors who were appointed by presidential fiat outside of the ordinary promotion channels, etc.

But, then, authoritarianism and secrecy go hand in hand....

So I would encourage the Students' Union to get more militant about such matters. The alternative is a university run by and, more importantly, for the administration.

beanyb

panda100 wrote:

In med soc class rep election every year everyone in the class writes who they want to be class rep on a piece of paper,their first choice and second choice...or if there is only one person running they vote yes or no.Then a group of 5 or so people count them up at the top of the class and someone is democraticallly elected. I cant see how that is so tough for each class to do.

While that might work for small classes where everybody knows everyone or at least most people, it would be competely impossible to operate in courses such as history. There's about 300 odd people in the class, it'd be totally unviable.

panda100

hullaballoo wrote:

Panda, peachy's right. If he proffers to be a lecturer, then until it is proven otherwise, we should assume this to be so. If you doubt him, take it to PM.

I'm actually surprised at you that you would bring the standard of the thread into an accusatory mess.

Now, let's pick up where we left off - a proper discussion.

ok sorry about that.

beanyb wrote:

While that might work for small classes where everybody knows everyone or at least most people, it would be competely impossible to operate in courses such as history. There's about 300 odd people in the class, it'd be totally unviable.

How??You could get three trusted people from the union into art(such as singingstranger etc) and get them to count the votes handed in after one of the classes.I really think its the best way to do it even if it is a bit of a crude method its better then what we have at the moment

Byrno

From the SU website http://www.ucdsu.net/newswire.php?story_id=1124&condense_comments=false#comment8348

ucdsu.net wrote:

IAB Grant University Power to Veto Union Council Decisions
by Concerned Class Rep Monday, May 15 2006, 7:36pm
ucd / miscellaneous / news report

Education Officer's right to minutes denied

Today the SU's Independent Appeals Board (IAB) turned down Education Officer's appeal against the President's refusal to obey a mandate from Union Council on grounds that it broke Governing Authority regulations.

The IAB decided in favour of James Carroll when he refused to give the Education Officer, Welfare Officer and the postgraduate rep access to minutes of the Governing Authority Finance Committee minutes despite these people being elected by students to the Authority.

The Union Council, that is designated as the Union's decision making body only over-rulled by a General meeting or Referendum, passed a motion requesting the President to give other student reps on the Governing Authority access to minutes of the Finance Committee. James Carroll refused to obey this mandate from class reps and preferred to obey the legally questionable internal rules of the University's Governing Authority. The decision of the IAB not to uphold the will of the Union Council results in the University's statutes and regulations having precendence over the decisions of the elected representatives and activists in the SU. This decision has disempowered class reps and undermined accountability in the Union.

In a contraversial move Paddy O'Flynn, a college employee on the IAB, requested a submission from the University Vice President Mary Clayton on this case. Education Officer, Jane Horgan-Jones, was not given access to the meeting to give an oral presentation to supplement her written appeal.

The IAB today only had one student sitting on it. Incoming IT&Comm Officer Gary Redmond acted as an alternate for the President. James Carroll broke with precedent and did not nominate another Sabbatical Officer. Other IAB members include Paddy O'Flynn, Dave Carmody (union administration officer), Leo Mangan (legal advisor), Brian Hutchinson (college employee), Morgan Shelley (returning officer) and Paddy Carroll (chair of SU Council). Today's decision going alongside the decision to remove Erasmus students from the membership is likely to boost calls for the replacement of the current IAB.

It has also been revealed that there will be a hike in Res fees proposed from the Finance Committee at tomorrow's Governing Authority meeting. It's unclear if James Carroll's refusal to comply with the wishes of the Class Reps has hampered a campaign against the hike.

The_Minister

Eoin Macollamh wrote:

So I would encourage the Students' Union to get more militant about such matters.

I think you will find (as discussed ad nauseum) that there is little student appetite for even current SU militanism. An increase would probably damage the union.

Blowfish

Firespinner wrote:

I think you will find (as discussed ad nauseum) that there is little student appetite for even current SU militanism. An increase would probably damage the union.

Especially if you look at this thread. There are people who are quite happy with the way UCD is at the moment.

Red Alert

That's an absolute disgrace. The college already has a majority number of nominees. Caroll has disgraced himself by bringing this whole fracas among us.

A motion needs be drafted (if possible) in council now setting down exactly what the union's official take on its relationship with the GA is.

singingstranger

Forgive my laziness but as a reaction I'm just going to quote what I put on the newswire.

I cannot believe that the Union's most supreme judicial organ has effectively decided that the Union itself is now merely an arm of the College administration. James's actions aside (tbh, very, very disappointed in him), the IAB have set an appalling precedent for the Union's campaigning future.

We're not all that far away, now, from a situation where we can approach the Admin building.
"Hi, we're protesting at the lack of consultation in the ongoing semesterisation and modularisation process. We have a Council mandate."
"Oh, that's nice but, eh, no, you can't."
"Ok." *Union people shuffle off in an orderly fashion*

The only save I can see for the IAB here is that they must have regarded James as an appointment to the Finance Committee in a personal capacity and not as the UCDSU President. If he was appointed as a joe-soap who just happened to be a Union officer, then there might be an argument for complying with the Committee's rules. However, I sincerely doubt that Hugh Brady appointed James to the committee because he's a good lad - it's more likely he was an (admittedly tokenistic) appointment because he was the President of the SU. This itself carries the conditions that by appointing the President of the SU, you're susceptible to his own job duties before his duties to Finance Committee.

This is a sad, sad day for UCDSU.

pretty*monster

panda100 wrote:

How??You could get three trusted people from the union into art(such as singingstranger etc) and get them to count the votes handed in after one of the classes.I really think its the best way to do it even if it is a bit of a crude method its better then what we have at the moment

Em... have you any idea how unworkable that is?
First of all there are so many classes in ucd, people 'such as singingstranger' (rather an arbitrary choice, I mean, I personally think Gav's a good guy, but I rather think the criteria should be stricter than 'seems like a nice bloke) would spend aaaages gooing from class to slass running these things. It'd be achingly slow.
Second, class reps don't always represent a 'class', the science reps for example are elected to represent I pile of people doing all manner of sciency thing about the place not necesserily in the same class, ditto the post grad reps. This will change some next year, but not entirely.
Also it's totally unproffessional.



Back to the OT
following the trend I'm just going to repost what I said on the newswire,

This 'disgrace' is someone anyone could have seen coming.

The only real scandal is that Jamess was let away with breaking mandate after mandate all year. It was obvious from fairly early on in the year that James didn't respect the decisions of council, but of course, any attempt to point that out was caricatured as petty lefty whinging.

pigeonbutler

Gav, to be honest I think that IAB looked at the Presidents constitutional duty to seek election to Finance Committee (and inferred from this that he was bound to work within their rules). I think it would be terribly selfish to break confidentiality of a committee when you've only got 2 months left sitting on it. If he did follow this mandate and break confidentiality I've no doubt we'd be left without Dan Hayden, and possibly, future Presidents sitting on Finance Commitee. Is that in the best interests of the Union and its members. I certainly don't think so.

I know you're taking the constitutional view that he has to follow the mandate, whether it's right or wrong. That's tough to get around to be totally honest.... but that vote was 19-17 and only counted once (strangely enough). James himself wasn't present (remember he'd have had a vote). The small numbers voting shows how fundamentally flawed council is. Particularly with regard to vitally important decisions like this, that will have a knock-on effect beyond this year. In my view a decision of this importance should have been put to referendum. I've no doubt it would have passed. But that wouldn't have been a bad thing as it would send a huge message to the University about transparency. James handing over minutes makes a very small petty point and would only cause long-term damage to the union.

James was elected by a majority of the votes cast (over 4000). He was running on the basis of a year of work as Education Officer. He was hugely criticised throughout his year as Education Officer for being too close to the establishment but the voters still saw fit to elect him as (quoting constitution) the first officer of the union. As far as I can say James is gaining absolutely nothing (zilch, nada) from refusing to follow this mandate. He has no selfish interest in it. I'd imagine it would be a lot easier to forget about his principles and the good of the Union and just follow the mandate.

I know some will say "Oh he's helping his political career by staying in bed with the establishment" I can't help but be highly amused by that. As a member of the same political party (dreaded FF ) as James I know that no delegate to a selection convention will ever give a flying fuck whether or not he broke confidentiality of UCD Finance commitee. He's acting for the good of UCD students, not for himself.

Because this mandate is being ignored Dan Hayden will sit on Finance Committee next year. I'd love to see Jane run a referendum campaign next year to ask if students want their President to what this motion called for. Somehow I doubt she'll be as keen to do it when the other student reps (those being asked to be given minutes) will be (most likely) Brian Doyle and Barry Colfer rather than herself.

Byrno

John, I think that you are missing the point. Council voted to release the minutes to the other student GA members in what it perceived to be the best interest of the union. It is not up to James to decide himself what is in the best interest of the union in lieu of this. I don't think he is doing it to further his career or anything, in fact I would assume (haven't been in Belfield in ages so haven't been able to talk to him) that he is doing what he believes best. However Council was quorate and made a decision and he should respect that, even if he doesn't agree with it.

singingstranger

Byrno wrote:

John, I think that you are missing the point. Council voted to release the minutes to the other student GA members in what it perceived to be the best interest of the union. It is not up to James to decide himself what is in the best interest of the union in lieu of this. I don't think he is doing it to further his career or anything, in fact I would assume (haven't been in Belfield in ages so haven't been able to talk to him) that he is doing what he believes best. How ever Council was quorate and made a decision and he should respect that, even if he doesn't agree with it.

I'm with Byrno on this one. It's probably worth noting too that while James is mandated by Constitution to seek election to FA, he was defeated in these elections and was only appointed by Hugh Brady in lieu of this.

Which I guess sort of goes against my own point (if he was elected as the President, he'd be more inclined to prioritise SU duty) but Byrno's got the right idea. Council decided what's best for the Union and James can't overrule this himself. Even if he'd been present the motion would still have been passed. Ignoring the weighted and contemplated decision of Council is nothing short of contempt for its power, regardless of how merited his actions truly were.

Bogger77

Vainglory wrote:

I also don't call "following mandate given to the President by class reps" irresponsible. I call it doing his bloody job.

Vainglory wrote:

All reps on council are elected. Some are elected unopposed (Like Mary McAleese. You know her, right?) But all are elected.

Interesting that you use the example of McAleese.

One would assume that as a figure head non politically active (according to our Constitution), that she would sign all bills/laws forwarded to her by the Oireacteas (the executive), but she has the right to refuse to do so if she believes it is against the spirit of the Constitution. She refers it to the Court of final adjudication (Supreme Court) for their decision. While doing so, she is effectively refusing to follow the mandate of the executive.

Sound familiar?

ps: The president was not elected for her second term, she was appointed, as there was no other valid candidate.
Elevation to or appointment to political office due to lack of opposition, is not being elected, it's being appointed. A person so appointed has no mandate from the people in their Constituency.
Mary McAleese and Paddy Hillary (’77 to ’91) differ from most unelected class reps, in that they faced the public and gained enough votes to be elected to the position for their first period of office, and were not challenged for re-appointment.
The majority of unelected, but appointed in absence of a challenger, class reps were elected through apathy, rather than on the value of previous performance in the role. Don't confuse apathy with approval.

pretty*monster

Quick point here, most constituencies were in fact contested this year.
Those that weren't are mostly final year and postgrad seats (no big suprise really).

Bogger77 wrote:

One would assume that as a figure head non politically active (according to our Constitution), that she would sign all bills/laws forwarded to her by the Oireacteas (the executive), but she has the right to refuse to do so if she believes it is against the spirit of the Constitution. She refers it to the Court of final adjudication (Supreme Court) for their decision. While doing so, she is effectively refusing to follow the mandate of the executive.

The big hole in your analogy is that the Supreme Court decide on the merits of the case. Whereas in this case the IAB seem to have decided based on a petition from the college.

AngelofFire

After todays decision i think that a radical overhaul of the IAB is needed. Its not healthy for a democratic organisation to have an independent appeals board which is clearly not Independent. Its a contradiction to allow College staff to sit on the IAB particularily in the event of the union policy or activity coming into conflict with the college authorities. This leads to a conflict of interests. Secondly it is contemptuous of our president to ignore a mandate given to him by union council the legitamite governing body of our union. Regardless of whether or not he thinks he is acting in the interest of the union, he as no right to flout the will of the students.

Red Alert

I somehow suspect a dispandment/reorganisation of the IAB would be difficult, not to mention attracting the ire of the college. :mad:

According to Eoin MacOllamh the staff members on the GA don't have access to this either. However I suspect even the SIPTU, Staff Members and Students still don't have enough of a majority over Brady's Suitmen to force them to be turned over.

The fact is we know these minutes exist - an FOI request would be warranted in this regard as the college would have to say why it would not carry it out.

Eoin Macollamh

Red Alert wrote:

The fact is we know these minutes exist - an FOI request would be warranted in this regard as the college would have to say why it would not carry it out.

IFUT has already made FOI requests for some of that information, I believe.

Red Alert

If the college refuses possibly the HEA or the like could be roped in. They probably would side with Brady, but it could bring the issue into the public domain.

Unlike a lot of internal politics here, if the message got out that taxpayer's money was being wasted without audit that would get a lot of Joe Duffy callers riled up.

Vainglory

pigeonbutler wrote:

Gav, to be honest I think that IAB looked at the Presidents constitutional duty to seek election to Finance Committee (and inferred from this that he was bound to work within their rules).

John, to be honest I think that you looked at your civic duty to tie your shoelaces (and inferred from this that the moon is made from green cheese) in order to suit your goals.

And surely then, by your logic, we could also look at how James sought election to the Presidential office (and infer from this that he was agreeing to be bound to work within the rules of the Constitution). And following on from this, surely we could say that where there was a conflict between these two "inferrals", that our SU President would uphold the Constitution rather than the ridiculous internal rules of the Finance commitee...

But then, surely, we'd be idiots.

hullaballoo wrote:

Panda, peachy's right. If he proffers to be a lecturer, then until it is proven otherwise, we should assume this to be so. If you doubt him, take it to PM.

In fact, did Panda ever prove she is a med student???

Chakar

pigeonbutler wrote:

Gav, to be honest I think that IAB looked at the Presidents constitutional duty to seek election to Finance Committee (and inferred from this that he was bound to work within their rules). I think it would be terribly selfish to break confidentiality of a committee when you've only got 2 months left sitting on it. If he did follow this mandate and break confidentiality I've no doubt we'd be left without Dan Hayden, and possibly, future Presidents sitting on Finance Commitee. Is that in the best interests of the Union and its members. I certainly don't think so.

I know you're taking the constitutional view that he has to follow the mandate, whether it's right or wrong. That's tough to get around to be totally honest.... but that vote was 19-17 and only counted once (strangely enough). James himself wasn't present (remember he'd have had a vote). The small numbers voting shows how fundamentally flawed council is. Particularly with regard to vitally important decisions like this, that will have a knock-on effect beyond this year. In my view a decision of this importance should have been put to referendum. I've no doubt it would have passed. But that wouldn't have been a bad thing as it would send a huge message to the University about transparency. James handing over minutes makes a very small petty point and would only cause long-term damage to the union.

I'd imagine it would be a lot easier to forget about his principles and the good of the Union and just follow the mandate.

Because this mandate is being ignored Dan Hayden will sit on Finance Committee next year. I'd love to see Jane run a referendum campaign next year to ask if students want their President to what this motion called for. Somehow I doubt she'll be as keen to do it when the other student reps (those being asked to be given minutes) will be (most likely) Brian Doyle and Barry Colfer rather than herself.

I'm with John on this one now that the motion was overruled by the IAB the seat of future Union Presidents on the Finance Committee is safe for now.I would be very surprised if Jane was to run a referendum concerning this issue that would be laughable by me.Also like what John said it would be terribly dishonest to break the confidentiality rules of the Finance Committee you just can't do that.

Also now this is settled unless Jane decides to run a referendum concerning this then it will be this all over again.

singingstranger

Conor, put it this way.

James has a constitutional duty to democratise at all levels of third-level education (including GA). Let's just say that the motion was put to GA first, and voted on. Because there are a load of beanie men on GA that are there to represent nobody and simply to outweight the student and staff votes, the motion would be defeated. However, James and the Union would still, regardless, have the constitutional duty to oblige by, and would then go ahead with the motion that was puty to Council anyway, as a measure of protest if nothing else.

You could also say that by looking at the College's submission to the IAB detailing the legal conditions under which someone sits on GA, such a motion would not even have been allowed to be brought up at GA. This would only confirm the Union's constitutional aim to democratise at every level of third-level institutions.

Essential this all boils down to whether any one person would, in James's situation, prioritise the rules of the GA, or the constitutional aims of the Union that he, as its First Officer, is (supposedly) the prime upholder of. If it was me, the duties to the SU would come far ahead of playing by GA rules, and especially so when the rules of the SU would oblige me to try and change the rules of the GA in the first place.