Executive recall saga ends

The Quebec Superior Court decided to allow the current CSU executive to serve out its term.
Undergraduate student and lawyer Patrice Blais circulated a petition seeking a recall of the current executive in December. Blais presented a petition with over 3,000 signatures to then council chair Jessica Nudo.
When Nudo and the judicial board both dismissed the petition earlier this semester, Blais sought a court order to require a byelection.
The court decided an election at this time would be “unreasonable.” Justice Robert Castiglio said, “there could be an election at this time, and new positions could rapidly be taken in the case of a special election, but the evidence doesn’t justify holding a new election.”
In order to hold an election, the judge would have required proof the current CSU executive would be making any binding decisions before it leaves office in June, of which there was none.
“The CSU exec has consistently acted in the utmost transparency with students,” CSU VP communications Elie Chivi said. “We will continue to serve students the same way for our last two months in office.”
Concordia undergraduates elected a new executive, slated to take office in June. The election was democratic, and students who voted were informed upon electing the new executive, according to the Justice Castiglio.
The CSU had asked the court to have Blais pay its legal fees, but the request was denied.
“The petition was reasonable,” the Court said. The petition was initially rejected on the grounds that most of the signatures were invalid. The Court, however, decided that the petition was valid.
New CSU bylaws regarding referendums, adopted three days before the official deposition of Blais’s petition, weren’t adequate in court.
“The Court is not convinced that the new, permanent rules adopted in haste by the Union could be validly invoked to overturn the petition,” Justice Castiglio said.
Independent councillor for the incoming executive Ethan Cox said the judge’s decision “brings to a close a sorry chapter in the history of the CSU.”