In Student Government (SG) if you break the rules, you are not sent to the principal’s office – you are sent to the chief justice’s
office. Much like the Supreme Court, the chief justice can hold hearings to decide if SG leaders have violated FAU’s SG constitution or statutes.
So, what happens when the chief justice breaks the rules? Apparently, nothing. SG’s newest Chief Justice, Peter Torres, who is only three months into his term, has already angered some students and SG officials, and has left administrators in the dark. After receiving his first two official court cases, he decided – by himself – that he was going to dismiss them.
The problem is, according to SG’s own rules, he doesn’t have the authority to do so. When interviewed by the UP he was neither concerned nor apologetic.
“I really don’t care what people think about me,” Torres said.
During a midnight interview at Denny’s on Feb. 24, while eating an original grand slam, Torres explained how he received the authority to dismiss the cases. Or at least he tried to, but he wasn’t very clear. After he poured sugar-free syrup over his pancakes, he said his powers came from SG’s statutes “under the judicial” part. However, he couldn’t say exactly where.
Then he changed his mind saying, “Where in the statutes or constitution does it say that I don’t have the authority?” He went on to say that because the rules do not spell out what he cannot do – he believes it gives him right to do it.
After being asked several times, “who gave you that authority,” he stated that a small mammal, (usually associated with Easter or Alice in Wonderland), told him where it came from.”A rabbit told me,” Torres said with a straight face.
But when the UP reporter continued to ask him about the statutes he finally said, “you seem to know more about the statues than I do.”
Aside from the statutes, wouldn’t it have just been fair to allow the full student court or the University Wide Council to hear the case?
“Not if it doesn’t warrant it. That would just be wasting everyone’s time,” Torres said. “Not every single petition and grievance
has to go.”
Actually, they do…at least according to SG’s own constitution (see box). Still, Torres said, he doesn’t mind having a court case.
“Nothing would make me happier than to have a court case, just so I could smack my little gavel on the desk in the senate workroom,” Torres said.
However, former Student Body President Ancel Pratt disagreed with Torres’ logic about the dismissals and said, “That was never meant to be the case.”
Pratt, whose administration helped write the SG constitution and statutes, explained that it was never their intention to give the chief justice that much power.
“That’s too much power for one person to have,” and he added that since the president appoints the chief justice, “that’s too much power of the executive branch.”
He went on to say that all court cases have to “be brought before the entire court.” But Heather Boyer, Jupiter’s senate speaker, doesn’t think so. Boyer couldn’t find any statutes supporting Torres and finally just said that he had the “precedent,” to do so. She explained that the former Chief Justice, Max Leynov, would dismiss cases and then inform the UWC.
When contacted, Leynov said he wouldn’t respond and just hung up on the reporter.Thirty minutes later, however, he called back, apologized and requested the questions be emailed to him.
After another 30 minutes Leynov sent an email back to the reporter and wrote “Unfortunately, seeing as though I am not aware of what operating internal procedures
SG is going by and have no knowledge
of what has or hasn’t been revised, I feel that I cannot give my opinion regarding
present SG activity.”
He also avoided answering whether or not he did the same things when he held the position,
as Boyer said he had done. However, the UP has reported in the past that Leynov didn’t always follow the constitution or statutes while he was in office.
So, why did Torres decide to throw out these cases in the first place? Besides “rabbits,” Torres could offer little explanation. The cases “were without merit,” and according to him, he is the one who gets to decide if a case has merit or not.
He also said, “The court also has the ability to look at the petitions before they come. They have to warrant the court convening.”
That’s the problem – there is no court as of now. A full court, which is needed to hear a case, consists of the chief justice and an associate justice from the Boca, Broward,Jupiter and Port St. Lucie campuses. Boca has yet to appoint an associate justice from its campus.
It just happens though that SG rules provide a back up plan for such a situation – the UWC, which is made up of representatives
from the campuses mentioned above, is supposed to assume the role of the court.
Even so, Torres argued, “I still have enough associates to constitute a full court.”
But that’s not what Torres said on Feb. 7 while addressing the Jupiter senate. In fact, he said, “we have two petitions in front of the court and seeing that we do not have a full court it is more than likely going to go before the UWC.”
Even if what Torres claims now is true and he does have a full court, he did not bother to call the court into session to allow them to dismiss the cases. Instead, he did that by himself.
While he acknowledged that there was no associate justice from Boca, he failed to mention that the petitions were dismissed on Feb. 9 – seven days before the Treasure Coast campus had appointed their associate justice.
After the cases were dismissed, Torres waited a week before he sent the information
to the other campuses. He also waited until Feb. 17 to send an email out to the UWC.
The only answer he offered on why he waited so long was, “because I was dragging
my feet.”
That date, Feb. 17, also just happened to be the next UWC meeting. A meeting in which he could have addressed the cases – but he wasn’t there.
Some SG officials had harsh words for the chief justice and his decisions. Kelly Gladwish, the governor of the Treasure Coast campus said, “I am shocked and surprised at the outcome, being that my associate justice or I wasn’t even contacted in regards to the outcome of this decision.”
While Diana Dejesus, the governor of the Boca campus, said she believes in due process and “If the case was heard at least the plaintiffs would have an opportunity to speak.” After Torres was told that Gladwish and Dejesus did not agree with his decision, he said, “Okay, that’s great for them.” Lisa Bardill, the associate dean for studentaffairs and SG adviser, only found out about the dismissals through second-hand sources including the UP. Her first step would be to speak with Torres and Wilson. “I have to get an idea where they are coming from,” Bardill said. Helen Marshall, the senate speaker for the TreasureCoast campus, was more vocal in her disgust for Torres’ actions.”I am truly appalled. This is an embarrassment.”And added that this “makes a joke out of student government.” She went on to say, she would bring up the cases at the next UWC meeting, on Friday March 17. However, becasuse of deadline the UP could not report on what happened. “I will do my best to make sure their cases are heard,” Marshall said.The UWC representative for the northern campuses, Paul Lowe, said, “I believe the system failed because it was shoved under the table by politics and Student Government.”While the Senate Speaker for the Browardcampuses, Sophia Barrett, said, “I was under the impression that we would hear the cases,” and added, “I wanted to hear the students. Students have a right to be heard,” even if it’s just to listen to them. However, current Student Body President Dan Wilson, said Torres “has the ultimate authority over the court,” and was under the impression that, “he had the authorityto dismiss the cases.” But he couldn’t point to any of the rules that gave him this authority and said that Torres “is supposed to be the expert on court matters.” Wilson said that he has made it a priority in his term to “keep to the issues of the executive branch,” and stay out of the affairs of the judicial branch because, “I do not want to abuse my power as president.” Both Jared Velez, the governor, and Heather Boyer, the senate speaker of the Jupiter campus both support Torres’ decision.But even they would have handled the situation differently. “The fact that he made the decision independentlyshould be concerning to all students,”but Velez adds, “I have to trust that the chief justice acted within his capacity and did not overstep his authority.” “I think he could have consulted the UWC,” but Boyer adds, “I support the decisionof the chief justice on how to conducthis court.” So what happens now? Torresdid say, “If the plaintiffs find anymore information that could substantiate a court case I look forward to having a court case.” And if they want to appeal – according to Torres – they’d have to take it to “a federal court, I guess.” According to Bardill, however, no federal courts would be needed. She would try to mediate the situation and have SG work it out internally. But more importantly, the students who filed the petitions need to come to her with their complaints. And if there are consequences for Torres’ actions, he isn’t concerned. “If they remove me, that’s great it’ll be another semester without a chief justice and that’ll be one less thing I have to worry about.”
