Your Concordia and Action have filed independent complaints with the CSU’s judicial board objecting to the chief electoral officer’s decision to disqualify both slates from the recent elections.
As of 9:37 p.m. Sunday evening, Your Concordia had filed their 11-page complaint and supporting documents to the judicial board, with Action soon following suit with their own six page document.
The complaints were submitted by the presidential candidates on behalf of their slates and declared that CEO Oliver Cohen’s decision to disqualify them was invalid. Each party cited lack of evidence produced by Cohen to support his decision. They also indicated they were not given a chance to prepare a case against the decision. Both slates claim to have complied with all regulations. Cohen was not available for comment.
In addition to refuting Cohen’s allegation of having improperly filed their expenses return, Your Concordia indicated that while three candidates who ran independently did not submit an election expense form, they were not disqualified. These three unaffiliated candidates – Justin Famili, Alex Matak, and Kelly Pennington – signed written attestations to that effect, which were included in Your Concordia’s supporting documents.
In total, Your Concordia’s complaint contains 16 supporting documents, including a series of emails between presidential candidate Lex Gill and the CEO. The exchange reveals that on April 7, the deadline for parties to file their return, Gill emailed Cohen to inform him that her slate had not incurred any further expenses since filing their initial return on March 22. At 6:31 p.m., approximately two hours later, Cohen notified her that what she had provided was insufficient. According to the documents provided, Cohen did not reply to her request for further clarification.
Action presidential candidate Khalil Haddad recommended in Action’s complaint that the judicial board take the long-form procedure to rule on the matter. Once received by the board, a complaint can be dealt with in three ways. The board can choose to dismiss the complaint, issue a written decision based on the complaint (the fast-track procedure), or require an additional four steps to be taken before ruling (the long-form procedure).Those four steps constitute a back-and-forth between the respondent and the plaintiff, whereas the respondent submits a brief, which is then rebutted by the plaintiff, and so on.
If the board chooses not to dismiss the complaint and consequently rules on the matter, its decision can be appealed within five days and is subject to appeal by any party. If the board dismisses the complaints outright, the decision is final, and no appeal will be heard.
According to the judicial board’s code of procedures, the board will try to meet within five days of having received a complaint.
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Hi Jackie, great article.
There’s one part I’d like to clear up though. The Judicial Board can’t really “dismiss” it—it can only dismiss cases that don’t follow procedure or aren’t under their purview, that sort of thing. That can either rule in favour or against upholding the decision of Oliver Cohen, but they can’t just “dismiss” it… They can take the short or long form process, but according to the Standing Regulations any election appeal has to be resolved within 20 days, no matter what (so before the May 9 AGM).
I still don’t trust the csu. sorry guys, too many problems over the years. I end up basing my vote on the one I feel is less corrupt which is really hard to do.