Student Government

SGA senators to fill vacant judicial branch seats

The SGA acknowledged its need for a judicial branch, particularly when they ran into procedural problems while reviewing President Prince Wilson’s nominations for chief and associate justice.

SGA President Prince Wilson and the Senate discussed nominations for the judicial branch during Wednesday's meeting in the University Center. | Jourdan Vian/The Daily Cougar

Wilson had plans to begin building the judicial branch at SGA’s Wednesday meeting; however, he ran into a snag when miscommunication had the appointments bypassing committee unconstitutionally.

The SGA constitution and bylaws state that the president is required to submit to the Internal Affairs Committee a copy of the judicial nominations application to be reviewed, and cannot bring it to the legislative branch until after chair of the committee gives the president a recommendation.

The Internal Affairs committee didn’t receive any filled out applications for the judicial position, chair of the committee Reyes Ramirez said.

Wilson said he created the application for the position two weeks ago and passed them on to Internal Affairs.

He submitted the appointments to be put on the agenda in spite of the lack of input from Internal Affairs.

“We cannot slow down the process,” Wilson said. “We only have three more meetings, so that’s the reason I just told the Speaker to put it on the agenda.”

The senators ultimately decided that following proper procedure was more important and the judicial system could wait.

“We survived without a judicial system for years,” Graduate Law Senator Taylor Kilroy said. “Two weeks really won’t make a massive difference, except it will reaffirm the reason why we have Internal Affairs.”

Graduate Social Work Senator Josephine Tittsworth has been a supporter of creating a judicial system for four years, but said that it is important to follow the rules of government.

“We have proper procedures for a reason, so we can eliminate potential problems before they arise,” Tittsworth said. “The issue is not the candidates. The issue was the process.”

She also said that a justice needs to fully understand the legislative process in order to put checks on the other branches.

The judicial applicants, history and political science senior Saifuddin Kalol and economics and political science junior Rauol Lopez will be reviewed by the committee over the next two weeks and SGA will vote on whether to confirm their appointments at their Oct. 29 meeting.

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