A motion to declare a ruling by the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) judicial board as “procedurally flawed” at the April 10 UMSU board of directors meeting has failed in a 13-6 vote.

Failed Motion 0659 described the March 27 ruling against UMSU vice-president student life Bolu Akindele as “[lacking] transparency, consistency and fairness” in the verdict process and states that it “did not meet the standards of due process expected in UMSU’s governing practices.”

It also states that the ruling “relied on documents and procedures that do not fall within UMSU’s official governing documents,” but did not specify details on the allegedly non-permissible procedures and documents.

The executive committee, of which Akindele is a member, submitted the motion.

The motion called for the judicial board’s recommendations following the verdict to be “unenforceable” and sought to have the governance committee review the mandates of the judicial board and membership services committee for alignment with UMSU’s governing documents.

Akindele was previously ruled to have violated a clause in the UMSU Governance and Operations Manual which calls for the vice-president student life to serve as a liaison between UMSU and UMSU’s community representatives.

She was also deemed to have violated the intent of the community initiative funding approval structure within the Membership Services Committee Criteria and Regulations. The judicial board was unable to comment further on the violations.

Course of action ‘shameful’, says former judicial board chair

Jared Ramos Murphy, former judicial board chair during the academic year and vice-president external affairs-elect, was one of the students that spoke in opposition of the motion.

“No executive has the power to appeal their decision, nor force the board,” stated Ramos Murphy. “The judicial board is the overseeing body of this union.”

“If this motion passes and it is upheld, the judicial board can be coerced by executives who are unhappy with the board’s rulings, then our union’s very future is at stake,” he added.

Ramos Murphy described the executive committee’s course of action as “shameful,” stating that the “judicial board is the only measure of protection for students-at-large to turn to, and any weakening of those protections should be unquestionably [refuted].”

Student-at-large Victoria Romero also spoke in opposition, stating that this motion could set a dangerous precedent.

“If this motion is to pass, there is no way that any executive could ever be held accountable for negative actions in the future,” she claimed. “They would always be able to say, ‘the judicial board didn’t do it the right way, the judicial board wasn’t fair.’”

Subcommittees must follow governing documents, says Akindele

“When subcommittees are not following the governing document, at the end of the day, this needs to be brought back to the board and the board has to put measures in place to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” said Akindele.

“Like the motion states, there are procedures that were not followed, there were violations to our governing documents based on the process of judicial,” she said.

“It will be a dangerous precedent if the board of directors cannot even address that.”

Akindele acknowledged the independence of subcommittees, but added that the board of directors is the highest authority of UMSU and has jurisdiction over every subcommittee.

A portion of the discussion occurred in closed session before the motion was defeated by secret ballot.