After spending more than an hour making final alterations to the intricacies of Student Government’s rules of court, the SG Senate Committee on Rules drafted a version to be debated at Wednesday’s senate meeting.
SG Senate Speaker Brooksie Bonvillain and Sen. Lane Pace, University Center for Freshman Year, are authoring the bill.
The University Court has now been working on the rules of court for more than one semester. They’ve “cleaned up the legalistic terms and put it in more student-friendly terms,” Bonvillain said.
“We worked to review and revise them. It’s been a long time coming,” said Danielle Rushing, UCourt chief justice. “Jennie Stewart, my adviser, helped me to make it to where the average student could understand it. We’re all just students, and we want the students to be able to read our rules of court.”
The changes will be effective immediately if the Senate approves them Wednesday.
The changes in the rules allow court verdicts to be available on the judicial branch website, while the public will need to contact Rushing for official tape-recordings of cases.
“It’s property of the judicial branch. Now the judicial branch has its own [tape recorder], and nobody can take it out of the room unless it’s me,” Rushing said.
Sen. Cody Wells, University Center for Advising and Counseling, asked at Monday’s Senate Committee on Rules meeting if this may cause people to find fault in SG’s “transparency,” but Bonvillain and Rushing cleared up the ambiguity by saying the “minutes will be posted on the website,” and “any of the old court cases are open for viewing at any time.”
The rules changed counsel requirements, as well. Previously, there was no cap on how many people could be called up to speak in someone’s defense, which Rushing said she felt was unfair because one person may have 10 people on their behalf while another had two.
“Previously, there were no rules — you could bring as many people as you’d like up there,” Rushing said. “Now, a maximum of two LSU students can serve as your defender, one of which can be the public defender.”
Bonvillain stressed that counsel must be a University student.
“If your dad’s an attorney, I’m sorry, but he can’t be your counsel,” Bonvillain said.
A clause stating “in the event of a tie vote, the Dean of Students shall have the authority to cast the deciding vote” was removed from the rules.
“In the past, the chief justice hasn’t voted in a court hearing,” Rushing said. “The chief justice will not vote in a hearing unless there is a tie. The chief justice is the most neutral way to do it.”
Another clause that has been a part of the rules of court was clarified. If a justice feels strongly about a case, any justice may write a concurring or dissenting opinion to be filed separately.
“That’s just so if they don’t like what I write, they can write their own opinion separately,” Rushing said.
Default judgment terms also changed.
“Previously, it said the court could only rule for the complainant with default judgment, but now you can rule in favor of the respondent,” Rushing said.
The rules also change injunction guidelines.
“You could always injunct something deemed unnecessary or unethical within Student Government,” Rushing said. “Now, we added that you can injunct legislative instruments and executive orders.”
Rushing is pleased overall with the changes in the rules.
“It’s not just for Student Government members — it’s for everyone,” she said. “I think it’ll be beneficial for the upcoming election. … From the judicial standpoint, I think an appealing process is necessary, and we no longer have that.”
 
 
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Contact Andrea Gallo at [email protected]