Shafinaaz Kamrul / Roundup
Starting this semester, the Associate Student’s Organization (ASO) will be re-establishing its judicial branch, the student court.
The student court has not been in session for more than 4 years.
“The court would be there to decide how to moderate student issues and grievances,” said ASO president Abraham White.”It will give the students a chance to be judged by their peers and to have their issues decided by other students.”
For example, if a student has an issue with a teacher or with a class, they can go to the student court, which would take place in the ASO trailer. The meeting times have not been decided yet.
Disputes between the clubs that are under the ASO and the ASO general elections would also be handled by the student courts.
“Sometimes what happens is that during the elections of ASO presidents there may be accusations against the presidents which need to be verified,” said Brad Saenz, the ASO advisor. “Or when a student wants to leave a club and still has dues to pay, a issue arises.”
Usually what happens is that such disputes are handled by the ASO advisor or the vice president of the student services.
“That kind of takes the power out of the hands of the students,” said Saenz. “We are glad to do it, but its better to have the students handle their own issues rather than have the administration do it.”
The ASO president and the senators decided on the justices. They will serve for one school year until new officials are appointed.
The powers of the student court are yet to be determined by the deans and the student services. It is still a new concept and the ASO members are working on it.
“At this point we would probably make recommendations instead of having punishments for the students,” said White.
“We can not fine the students or suspend them, ” added Saenz.
The student court would not be handling issues as grade disputes, or academic problems that students may have. Those are still issues to be settled by the school president and the administration.
“The student court is really the ASO and the clubs policing themselves,” said Saenz. “Grade disputes and problems with the administration are much bigger than that.”
Even though decisions are made by the school administration, the ASO student court can help the students represent themselves whenever such a issue arises.
“Whenever there is a big dispute involving students and the administration, usually its required that a student sits in the committee that oversees the dispute and whoever is in charge of the www.gmail .com committee would come to us to ask if there is a volunteer or if we know anybody,” said Saenz. “If we set this up the way we are planning it we can have one of the justices or the chief justice go.”
In that way the student court does have a bigger role than just involving the ASO and clubs.
The justices met on Wednesday for the first meeting. The dates for the upcoming meeting are not known yet.
The justices elected were Adam Wade, Shareen Nizami, Farbod Fazlollohi, Sharnaz Sedghipour and Alexandra Balta.
The student court would probably meet once every two weeks or once a month.
