ASUCD Court

As the ASUCD Constitution phrases it: "The judicial authority of the ASUCD shall be vested in one ASUCD Court ...and the Student Judicial Affairs/Campus Judicial Board." The latter only deals with elections issues.

The ASUCD Court consists of nine members, nominated by the ASUCD President and confirmed by the Senate. The Chief Justice is chosen from among these by the same process. Justices serve until they graduate, resign, or, more likely, are removed by the ASUCD Senate and exiled to the ASUCD Gulag in Siberia. Justices may be permanently removed by a two-thirds vote of the ASUCD Senate after a personnel hearing on the matter - incidentally there is no similar mechanism for impeachment of senators. In fall of 2003, there were three removal attempts against Court members.

If one feels that an ASUCD officer is not conducting their job correctly, or ASUCD legislation is not consistent with existent ASUCD Bylaws, or other similar claim, they may file a complaint with SGAO, who shall have on hand a complaint form (in the past they've sometimes claimed not to have one, in which case one should just answer the questions found in Section 402(2) of the Judicial Codes). SGAO should get it to the Court and you'll hear from the Court with further instructions when they've decided whether or not to take the case. The Court meets at 8:00pm on Wednesdays in the Mee Room, 3rd Floor MU. The meeting time is subject to change every quarter however.

Someone has created an ASUCD Court wiki in an attempt to improve the institutional memory of the Court.

Membership

Former Chief Justices
Former Associate Justices

Current Business
History

The Prehistoric Court
The Identity Crisis
Questionable Importance

Cases
Judicial Directives
Other Documents

Membership

The Court currently consists of:

Chief Justice Missy Lyla Whitney
Associate Justice Rudy Ornelas
Associate Justice Filipp Ovchinnikov
Associate Justice Ryan Meyerhoff
Associate Justice David Karimi
Associate Justice Daniel Maroon

Former Chief Justices

Robert Clarke, first Chief Justice appointed by ASUCD President Peter Nguyen following passage of the Democracy at Davis constitutional amendment which established the Court
Megan Kern, second Chief Justice
Tim Coady
Kris Fricke

Former Associate Justices

Geoffrey DeBoskey
Russell Manning
Kevin Powers
Joe Harney
Michael Aguilera
Michael Reiser
Mona Sharif

Kris Fricke was the Chief Justice for over three years, was replaced following his retirement by Tim Coady. He led a coup d'etat shortly after being put on the court and was installed as Chief Justice while still the newest Court member, having sat on the Court for about a month, dissented on every opinion, and been the plaintiff in the first three cases to be considered (which had been filed during the previous year but the Court wasn't operational for the preceding entire year). Fricke has announced he will be retiring at the end of this (Fall 2006) quarter.

Other than the Chief Justice, the above lists Justices in descending order of time on the Court, and alphabetically where simultaneously appointed. The Vice Chief Justice, as one can imagine, presides in the absence of the Chief Justice. They are elected quarterly. After the Vice Chief Justice, precedence follows in order of seniority.

Current Business

Case 43 - Not sure v. Not sure - Almost exact duplicate of Case 42.

Case 42 - Laabs v. Friedman et al. was heard at 8:10 PM on October 31st 2007. The case was to deal with the legality how GO used the university and ASUCD logos on their website. The case was withdrawn by the plaintiff the night of the hearing, presumably because he wasn't prepared to prove that he was a member of ASUCD (Laabs is a grad student who hadn't paid his ASUCD fees at the time of the hearing because of a financial aid screwup). Laabs was censured for one month by the Court for withdrawing the case on such short notice.

Chief Justice Fricke has now retired from the court, as he became the first justice to hit the term limit of four years. His farewell speech at the ASUCD Senate meeting of 16 November, discussed how much he loved the association and the court, and how retarded it was that the Government Codes and Standing Rules were combined in the Bylaws. His replacement, chosen from among the current justices, is junior Tim Coady. Fricke reached the end of his term at approximately 6PM January 25, 2007 — shortly after he finished writing his last writ of certiorari.

History

The Prehistoric Court

The pre-history of the Court is shrouded in myths and legends as record keeping in ASUCD seems to be shockingly bad. In fact, though some recent Opinions have been submitted to SGAO multiple times as word documents, and they even printed them out and posted them, they still profess not to have them on record anymore.

The ASUCD Court was created in its recognizable form in 1995 as the Supreme Court through the Democracy at Davis constitutional amendment. Just like in the federal government, the ASUCD Senate was empowered to create inferior courts, like an elections court, whose decisions could be appealed to the ASUCD Supreme Court. However, this power was never used. In 1996, over the objections of then ASUCD President Peter Nguyen and ASUCD Vice President Aaron Bloom, the ASUCD Senate reduced the stipends of members of the ASUCD Supreme Court, citing a lack of activity. Nguyen and Bloom, as founders of the new system of government, pointed out that the Court was a passive branch of government which could only respond to cases filed by plaintiffs and that it should be accorded co-equal status to the other 2 branches. In the first seven years there were allegedly eight cases, five of which were in 1995 regarding elections issues. (source: Background on Constitutional Amendment 1 of 2001)

In 2001 the ASUCD Supreme Court disqualified the Bledsoe/Beaman executive ticket of the LEAD party for "massive cheating worse than Ukraine in 2004" (they were very prescient back then). Bledsoe, self proclaimed "Black Caesar of ASUCD", then threatened to sue ASUCD, the Court, the Administration, and anyone else remotely involved back into the stone age. Under threat of this impending legal holocaust, the Court reversed its ruling and allowed "the Reverend" Tiqula Bledsoe to take office. Like the Romans razing Carthage to the ground and salting its former soil, Bledsoe Maximus wanted to triumphantly squash his nemesis, the judiciary, and had its name changed legally to the ASUCD Court, and extralegally to Student Court, with Chairpersons and Members (see Identity Crisis, below). Also, and very significantly, all matters relating to elections were removed from the Court's jurisdiction. Having succeeded in this he then treated himself to the spoils of ASUCD, using government funds to pay for limos and parking tickets (not an exaggeration). Bledsoe would go on to be remembered for years to come for an administration marked by capricious misuse of ASUCD funds.

There followed a year during which the Court was so crushed that it did not even meet. Cases were filed (by Lamar Heystek, and Kris Fricke among others), but the plaintiffs in many cases never heard back from the Court once the complaint was filed. When the Court resumed activity with the D1 Case, it was designated Case # 19; obviously this doesn't add up to the eight cases previously mentioned, unless ten were filed during the year of inactivity. The truth to this matter is unclear.

In the winter of 2002, the Court had a major case regarding the move to D1. It hinged upon a misprint in the Codes that led to confusion as to whether or not the referendum to place the Move to D1 question on the ballot. The majority of the Court found that the referendum had indeed been placed incorrectly on the ballot and declared it therefore null and void. Newly appointed Justice Kris Fricke was the sole dissenter, claiming that yes there was clearly a mistake in the process through which the referendum ended up on the ballot, but the Court did not have jurisdiction over elections and should have handed the case back to the Elections Committee once it had examined and interpreted the contested codes. In response to this declaration, the ASUCD Executive Office stated "we believe [the Court] is only advisory" (obviously they had skipped over the part in the Constitution which mentions binding opinions). The Court subsequently met with the UC Davis legal council, who informed them that Justice Kris Fricke was in fact correct and they were fairly far from the recognized path of legal norms. Within a month the previous Chief Justice resigned, and Justice Fricke was confirmed as the new Chief Justice just in time to swear in a new executive office.

Under the Fricke Administration, the Court considered six cases the following year.

The Identity Crisis

In 2001 a Constitutional Amendment was passed changing the name of the principal judicial organ of ASUCD from "ASUCD Supreme Court" to "ASUCD Court." In the copies of the Constitution and bylaws produced by SGAO, the change was rendered to "Student Court," and in an overzealous rampage of derision, they proceeded to change every instance of "Justice" to "Member," and "Chief Justice" to "Chairperson," among other things.

There's a poorly formatted Aggie Article about conflicts between President Henry and the Court.

After thorough discussion of the subject, the Court has determined that the references to "Student Court" etc, having never been legally rendered, are erroneous and that this constitutes a continuing erroneous behavior until it is changed in the copies that the SGAO is producing. In the Winter of 2005 a Constitutional Amendment was passed which intentionally referred to the Court as the ASUCD Court. Thus that name has both been determined to be the accurate one through analysis of historical legislation, but has been reaffirmed by a Constitutional amendment (which takes precedence over any previous conflicting references or references in subordinate bodies). As of this writing, references to "Student Court" have been removed from all ASUCD bylaws, but the term remains in verbal use by more antiquated individuals.

Questionable Importance

During the 2004/2005 year no cases were filed. Some senators took this to mean that ASUCD had become a utopian society and no longer needed the ASUCD Supreme Court. During the Candidates Forum in Fall 2005 candidate Kongo Aguilera said he saw no role in ASUCD for the Court. Shortly following that election four cases were filed. The candidates will not be seated until the case regarding the election is resolved. Without the role of the Court in the association, it is hard to imagine a resolution to this situation which would not involve the dubious overriding of bylaws, a cry of injustice and public opinion fiasco, or both.

Kongo Aguilera was subsequently appointed to the Court.

Cases

Many cases appear to be lost to the sands of time, as SGAO tends to misplace them and Chief Justice Fricke's computer crashed at the beginning of Fall 2003 and lost all court documents on it previous to that.
The availability of opinions is important however. Reading them, one can understand what kind of things constitute a case, and more importantly, the Court would probably be very impressed if someone cited precedent from a previous ASUCD case in arguing a future one.

These documents are not copyrighted (government documents cannot be copyrighted. This applies to ASUCD documents when ASUCD is acting as a government, and don't let them tell you otherwise), but of course disseminating an altered & misleading version of one of these would be illegal. Official copies of these may be (officially should be) available at the SGAO office on the 3rd floor of the MU

Case # 22 - Fall 2003 - Ricky v. Perez - Regarding the definition and use of the term "co-author"
Case # 23 - Winter 2004 - Ahmed-Falol et Al v. Henry - Regarding notification to commissioners of their terms, and the terms of commissioners filling vacated positions.
Case # 24 - Spring 2004 - Michael Siminitus v. Mark Champagne. Eventually dismissed after a special hearing on jurisdiction, at which Mr. Champagne disputed court jurisdiction over him. This resulted in this opinion, wherein the Court found it in fact did not have jurisdiction over career employees.
Case # 25 - Spring 2004 - Filed a day after the above, it involved essentially the same Plaintiffs and Defendants. It was discussed at the same special hearing as above and involved in the same opinion. See above.
Case # 26 - Fall 2005 - Van Schoelandt v. Leathers. Retracted by plaintiff before the Court could consider it. See Case # 28
Case # 27 - Fall 2005 - Van Schoelandt v. Leathers. Retracted by plaintiff before the Court could consider it. See Case # 28
Case # 28 - Fall 2005 - Harney v. Leathers. Regarding the ["Fall 2005 ASUCD Election/Unqualified Candidates Scandal" Unqualified Candidates Scandal]. Case was accepted, but the ASUCD Senate retroactively changed the bylaws so that the candidates never were potentially in violation of them, thus negating the case, and sat the candidates.
Case # 29 - Fall 2005 - Laabs v. The California Aggie. Regarding a bylaw that states that ASUCD web-pages must be hosted on the ASUCD server and approved by ASUCD unit Media Link; and the fact that the California Aggie, an ASUCD unit, is allegedly in violation of both these conditions. Accepted, a hearing was held on 02/07/06. On 02/21/06 the official opinion was released. The court sided with Laabs and ruled that The Aggie was in violation of the bylaw. The court deferred to the Campus Media Board until the contract expires.
Case # 30 - Winter 2006 - Laabs v. The ASUCD Senate - Alleging that ASUCD Senate Bill # 36 (2006) (the retroactive one) violates separation of powers because it mandates that cases which have been effected by retroactive legislation be immediately dropped, and Plaintiff alleges that ASUCD Senate cannot compel the Court to drop a case.
Case # 31 - Winter 2006 - Van Schoelandt v. The ASUCD Senate - Alleging that the closed session which the ASUCD ASUCD Senate had on January 12th, 2006, in which they wrote ASUCD Senate Bill # 36 (2006) was not authorized by the ASUCD Constitution or bylaws and was in fact in violation of the constitution. Writ of certiorari (see Current Business for other documents).
Case # 32 - Winter 2006 - Nanakul v. SGAO - Alleging that the "Student Bill of Rights," passed in Winter 2004, is not available online or in physical form, in violation of ASUCD Senate Bill # 48 (2003), which requires legislation be made available online. The more interesting question in this case is responsibility for carrying out legislation: American tradition (ASUCD is modeled after the US Federal Gov't after all) would have the executive office (the ASUCD President) responsible for carrying out legislation, but SGAO is named as the Defendant, and ASUCD tradition has had the author of legislation bear the responsibility for its execution (author of Bill of Rights unknown at this time, but it was a major Focus campaign plank). Accepted, hearing scheduled for 02/28/06, 7:10, MU Mee Rm.
Case # 33 - Fall 2006 - Laabs v. ASUCD Senate - Case declined by the Court.
Case # 34 - Fall 2006 - Savaree-Ruess v. ["Genna Carnes Carnes] et Al - Accepted, hearing held. See Current Business above. - Regarding the definition of "parties" to a closed session.
Case # 35 - Fall 2006 - Laabs v. Holloway - Accepted, consideration pending the completion of Case 34. - Regarding the appointment of Steve Ostrowski to an Academic Senate committee.
Case # 38 - Unknown Date - Ostrowski v. Rivera II, alleging that Rivera failed to hire enough alternate commissioners, was rejected due to the statue of limitations. See the writ of certiorari for more.
Case # 41 - Unknown Date - Laabs v. Ostrowski, Payne

Judicial Directives

Because it is important for judicial bodies to follow clear procedures, the United States Supreme Court has drafted the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as well as rules for their own proceedings, the California Judicial Council headed by the Chief Justice has created the California Rules of Court, and the ASUCD Supreme Court has similarly seen fit to codify the areas in which it has discretion into clearly written directives.

Judicial Directive 1 - Judicial Directives
Judicial Directive 2 - Judicial Binder
Judicial Directive 3 - Attendance Policy
Judicial Directive 4 - Meeting Frequency
Judicial Directive 5 - Resignations
Judicial Directive 6 - Filing of Briefs
Judicial Directive 7 - Bailiff
Judicial Directive 8 - Hearing Formats
Judicial Directive 9 - Judicial Guideline of Ethics
Judicial Directive 10 - Writs of Certiorari
Judicial Directive 11 - Previous Orders
Judicial Directive 12 - Alternate Attendance Policy
Judicial Directive 13 - Succession of Presiding Officer
Judicial Directive 14 - Inter-Collegiate Judicial Federation Liaison