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Court meeting this evening. We (1) Set the time & place for the Case 34 Hearing as next Wednesday at 7:10pm, MU Mee Rm; (2) Granted the Plaintiff's motion to have two counsels speak for each side rather than one; (3) Elected a new Vice Chief Justice -- Tim Coady; (4) I read the new "Presiding Officer Suppliment" (to the Judicial Handbook which doesn't yet exist); (5) I introduced Judicial Directive 14, which codifies the position of Inter-Collegiate Judicial Federation (ICJF) Liaison, which already exists (Justice Coady); (6) We reported new contacts to the ICJF: contact has been reestablished with UCI; the UC Merced president will send me the Chief Justice's contact info as soon as there is one (apparently Justices were being sworn in down there this very same evening); we've made contact with Antelope Valley College, Puget Sound sometihng and something else (Iowa?); (7) We discussed the changes that had been made to Judicial Proposal 7.
Though in an actual indictment hearing, on which this proposal is modelled, only the prosecutor presents, many people present at the IAC meeting on Monday found this hard to stomach. I found myself arguing with Lead Party Chairman Schwab against rights of Justices (their right to be at their own indictment), which I thought was rather funny. Anyway, regardless of the theory and precedent of real indictments, it became clear it would be very hard to make the Senate understand, so it was decided to instead disallow the prosecutor from presenting. Instead they would simply submit a charge sheet alleging specific charges over specific events that violate specific bylaws.
To further clarify things, I went ahead and prepared an example charge sheet, in which the fictional Justice Vader is charged with various things such as sleeping with the Defendant and being the cause of the Deepthroat Incident. Calls on witnesses such as ASUCD President Neustrom & Chief Justice Kenobi.
The Special ASUCD Spurious Commission on Heraldry & Superlatives
Once the Court meeting had concluded, the Special ASUCD Commission on Heraldry & Spuriousness (SCHS) convened. ( Warning Gratuitous Nerdery ) it has been officially determined that Steven "Darth Steve" Ostrowski cannot be considered a "Sith Lord" nor given the title of "Darth," but should instead be rightfully considered "Sith Ostiarius Ostrowski."
Then Justice Harney & I went to dollar pint night at Sudwerks and I met up with my friends RoseJean Weller & Shemek.
In the spirit of the Impeachment Fever that has been sweeping through society of late, I have decided to propose a solution. It will be discussed in Internal Affairs Commission tomorrow (Monday 11/13)(at 5pm, MU Garrison Rm). The only problem, despite the fact that the background section is only two paragraphs long, I can't seem to get it to look right. Specifically, I can't seem to find a satisfactory replacement for the word "spurious." I do like the word, but it found its way into just about every sentence and the harder I try to get it out the more entangled it gets. In order for the Judicial Branch to function properly, it must be protected from political influence. A major threat to this is the prospect of justices being removed over political disputes. Over the last four years there have been impeachments (removal hearings) against ASUCD Justices directly following unpopular court decisions at an average rate of once a year. This also occurs at other schools with similar student governments. Sometimes, however, there are legitimate reasons to impeach Justices, such as failure to attend meetings. The Bylaws should seek to allow impeachments for legitimate reasons while protecting the judiciary from those that are spurious. ...And the answer is indictment! (First link is the actual Bill, second is the changes in context. Underlines are additions.) And you thought the ICC "Confirmation of Charges" hearing last week was unrelated didn't you.
So help me fix this problem. The current Background of the proposed bill reads:
The Internal Affairs Commission currently reviews legislation submitted to the Senate and vets out that which is spurious. Spurious removal hearings however are significantly more troublesome than spurious legislation, being inevitably accompanied by more drama, stress, and a significant disruption of the meeting by having a closed session. It therefore is in keeping with the IAC’s existent duties, and in the interest of the ASUCD Senate, to have the IAC eliminate spurious impeachments.
Unfortunately alternative synonyms such as superfluous and specious still sound enough like "spurious" that it still sounds weird, and everything else I've thought of has a subtly different meaning. Extra points if you can work in schmaltzy (fatty, unnecessary), contravention, or some other saucy word.
Meanwhile at ASUC Berkeley
The illustrious Beetlebeat continues to provide insightful coverage of the impeachment of Chief Justice Banerjee.
