The Student Supreme Court held two pretrial hearings Wednesday night each related to the Feb. 12 student body general election.
Chief Justice Matt Liles heard cases regarding a disputed disqualification by the Board of Elections and a challenge to the referendum that increased the student safety and security fee by 25 cents.
Liles explained that pretrial hearings are to establish facts of the case and determine the trial procedure.
The longest hearing of the evening involved Speaker of Congress Tyler Younts questioning the validity of the safety and security fee increase. That case will likely be brought to the full court before Spring Break.
Younts brought a complaint against the student safety and security committee and its chairwoman Simone Chaffiotte. He said e-mails were sent to the committee's listserv that advocated supporting the fee increase violating the Student Code.
Title VI of the Code states e-mail messages from student government listservs cannot be used to advocate for or against referendums.
Although the referendum passed by a vote of 71 percent" Younts said he thinks that ignoring the rules compromises the integrity of the referendum process.
""Everyone who played by the rules didn't have the same opportunity to influence the outcome of this election" he said. If I knew the rules weren't going to be enforced" then I would have used my listserv to do this kind of thing.""
But in a Feb. 6 letter to the editor in The Daily Tar Heel" Younts urged students to vote against the fee saying it was unnecessary and unjustified.
Congress Rep. Val Tenyotkin and Student Body Treasurer Jordan Myers filed a motion to dismiss the case stating that Younts did not comply with several stipulations listed in the Student Code.
Younts took his complaint directly to the Student Supreme Court when he should have first filed with the Board of Elections Tenyotkin said.
The full court will decide on the motion to dismiss. If that motion fails" then the trial will proceed.
""I'm not going to rule on any of the issues of law tonight"" Liles said.
In the first hearing of the evening, Liles issued a summary judgement after five minutes. That case involved freshman Congress candidate Joshua Siddens, who was disqualified by the elections board.
Siddens will take the seat of incumbent Rep. Colton Mathews.
We had disqualified Joshua because I thought he held an appointed position with the Attorney General's office" and that was not the case" said Mitchell Capriglione, chairman of the elections board.
I'm just glad we got this wrapped up relatively quickly and got the right guy in Congress.""
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
