Last Nights J-Council Hearings

The Judicial Council began to hear elections related cases last night and they managed in about six hours to get through the Anu E-mail case and the preliminary portions of the SJP case.

In his case against Anu, former Senator Lafata told the j-council that there were two issues to decide. 1. Did the e-mail constitute the use of the authority of the Vice Presidents office and thus ASUC authority? 2. Was Anu acting as an agent of CalSERVE when she sent the e-mail? If the answer is yes to both questions then the punishment merited would be disqualification of the entire CalSERVE slate.

The first question he addressed was whether the e-mail constituted a use of Authority by the External Vice President.

Lafata provided three standards that he felt in combination with each other established the use of such authority. Each standard could not prove the use of authority by itself but together he felt they added up to prove the use of ASUC authority in this case.

1. The first standard was whether the action of sending out e-mails fell within the duties of the office.
2. The second standard was whether or not such e-mails were a common practice associated with the office.
3. The third standard Lafata provided was related to the mantle or title the officer in question had used in the e-mail.

Lafata next went on to argue that Mrs. Joshi was in fact an agent of the party when she sent out the e-mail. He pointed to the bylaws referencing that delegated authority within a party could only be extended to the “general campaign area” and not to specific acts. Mr. Lafata said that sending out campaign e-mails did in fact fall under this “general campaign area”. He argued CalSERVE as a whole was responsible for the actions of Mrs. Joshi because she was an agent of the party with the delegated responsibly that allowed her to campaign in the “general campaign area.”

During cross-examination it was established that Mrs. Joshi did campaign for CalSERVE during the election.

The defense argued Mrs. Joshi’s e-mail was a personal communication to her friends and thus not in the official capacity of her office. They stated that the e-mail was sent out on her personal account from her home computer.

Mrs. Joshi testified that she sent out the e-mail to her friends with information related to the duties of her office in a private capacity. She claimed she was not acting as the External Vice President when the e-mail was sent out.

Vice President Gomez argued that as a signatory of CalSERVE she did not specifically authorize Anu to send out e-mails campaigning for the party.

Analysis: Paul’s case was fairly strong and well presented. CalSERVE's defense was not as structured as Lafata’s presentation and it was sloppy with its terms. Several times the justices had to correct the defense on the use “malicious intent”. The defense was also unfocused, for instance they brought up issues of free speech when no one was questioning Mrs. Joshi’s right to speak out in her e-mails. They also largely failed to offer another definition of ASUC authority when given the chance to by the judges.

However several factors weigh against Paul getting this case resolved in his favor.

1. While the Justices may decide that the e-mail carried the authority of Joshi’s office it is not all that clear that Joshi was acting as an agent of her party when she sent out the e-mail.

2. The penalty of disqualification is a very severe recourse mandated by a guilty verdict in this case. The severity of the penalty could easily influence the Justice’s deliberations.

3. The question of whether or not ASUC authority was in fact used, although well argued by Lafata, is still up to interpretation. The central question seems to be: When is an executive officer acting as an executive officer and when is he/she acting as a private student? Lafata argues that the e-mails content combined with the duties of the offices, the regularity of such e-mails, and the mantle assumed in the signature constitute the use of authority. The justices will have a lot of leeway on this issue because there is no clear definition of what ASUC authority is and isn’t. Lafata gave them his version, but there are other seemingly limitless definitions out there.

I think this case more likely than not will be resolved in CalSERVE’s favor.Email This Post!