Will VUWSA break its own constitution?

Certain people at VUWSA are so aghast that their official policy is now to support VSM, they are planning to illegally overturn the result? How do you do that? Well Salient reports:

It has been brought to Salient’s attention that VUWSA will hold another SRC meeting this Friday at 11am in the Mount Street Bar.

Notification of the SRC meeting was placed on the VUWSA noticeboard on Wednesday afternoon. [Photographic evidence to the right. JJW]

The notice says that the meeting will be held “pursuant to part IV s. 2 (3-4) of the VUWSA Constitution.”

However, part IV s. 2 (4) of the VUWSA Constitution says that “such special meeting shall be held no sooner than three (3) office days and not later than ten (10) office days after the date of receipt of a requisition [for a meeting], or resolution by the executive.”

Fewer than 48 hours will have passed between the notification of the SRC, and the meeting actually being held, directly contravening the procedures outlined in the constitution.

So an illegal meeting, in breach of their own constitution, held in a bar at 11 am on a Friday (when all good students are hungover) is the first response of the compulsion lovers.

But it gets even better. After forceful representations about the illegality of the proposed Friday meeting (not that the forces of compulsion did the same thing at WSU – hold a vote with only a day or two’s notice) including a potential injunction, the compulsionaters have come up with an even better plan.

They have simply declared the Wednesday meeting void  on the grounds two VUWSA people declare a quorum count of 45, less than the required 50. Now note the resolution was passed with 80 people voting and a later quorum count (with one independent person) found there to be over 60 people present, and this count was done within the 30 minutes allowed in the constitution.

This is a prime example of how unaccountable some associations are. VUWSA never questioned the legitimacy of the Wednesday meeting, until after they realised they could not legally hold a repeal meeting on Friday.

UPDATE: A student captured the meeting on video, which is now on You Tube.  It is in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. You can easily see there are way way more than 50 people there. In fact I am told it was one of the most well attended SRCs in recent years.

I understand also that signatures are being gathered from around 60 people who will testify they attended the SRC at all times, and put their hand up for all quorum counts.