At the end of last year, ICU Council passed a new constitution establishing, amongst other things, a trustee board. A paper by Jon Matthews is now asking Council to re-pass the same constitution, as the way in which the constitution was passed was not actually constitutional. The paper asks that the constitution be re-passed as it was originally presented at the end of last year, before any amendments are made. The paper has caused controversy, with some Union officers asking why this is necessary now: it is believed ICU President Stephen Brown wished to deal with this at the end of the year.
Why is it necessary?
Under the constitution in force at the time of the changes, new constitutions had to be passed by two different meetings of ICU Council with minor revisions allowed. However, some changes made between the two meetings were quite fundamental, ironically including one cutting the number of readings required to change the constitution. Most of these changes were not made clear to Council with some of them not even tracked, for example paragraphs being deleted without trace.
The original reason that the constitution had to be passed by two meetings was to allow time for reflection on the changes being made, to ensure that Council were happy with them. Introducing changes between the two readings meant that Council were unable able to reflect on the changes, and they did not have the two readings they required. Whether this was a deliberate attempt to get things through without Council having time to change them or come up with arguments against them or not is unclear.
The fact that the constitution was not changed by going through the correct process invalidates the whole document and all changes introduced in it. This means that the ICU Trustee Board was not created properly and so is not in itself valid. Re-passing the constitution will validate the document and, by extension, all changes including the Trustee Board.
Why do it now?
There appear to be two competing factions: those who want to deal with this now, and those who wish to wait until the summer when less is going on (and fewer people turn up to Council). A lot of the problems with passing the constitution last time occurred as there was very little time in which to get the changes passed, with the new constitution coming to the last two meetings of Council. There was simply no opportunity to pass any amendments twice.
Supporters of the paper would like to pass it now, so the Union will no longer be operating under an invalid constitution, that the Trustee Board is legitimate and that time can be taken on debating changes needed this year without Council having to read through hundreds of pages in the last two meetings of the year. Achieving quorum is often a problem during the summer term.
The paper calls for Council to approve the constitution un-amended twice, as the change in the number of readings was not valid. This means that the constitution will, at the earliest, be approved in February and the earliest any new amendments can be approved will be in the March meeting of Council, three days after the College Council meets. The paper's supporters have indicated that because of this, the first time the amended constitution can be presented to College Council for approval will be in July: giving ICU Council five months to ensure that the changes are made correctly.
With the problems caused by bringing major changes to last two meetings in the year last year, it may seem sensible and more democratic for the changes to be dealt with on a much smaller scale throughout the year, rather than being pushed through at the last minute. It remains to be seen if Council will take this view.
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