Salient Excluded

Executive Reporter

Disciplinary action over the alleged Xeroxing of science faculty ball tickets was discussed in committee by the student executive's last meeting.

Executive discussed the matter after Salient's official executive reporter had been excluded.

Ten minutes before, executive had resolved that the executive reporter should sit in on, but not report, in-committee discussions. The reporter was to be excluded only on the direction of the president.

When the ball ticket affair came up, president Chris Robertson exercised his newly-ratified discretion. He asked the Salient reporter to leave.

Issues Arise

Executive disciplinary decisions involve two parties:

• The alleged offenders against the student community.

• The executive which represents the students

Thus the affair is a student one.

In the wider community, evidence presented to the court is not usually suppressed, although the name of the alleged offender may be.

Suppression

By going into committee, executive suppressed not only the name of the alleged offender but the evidence of the case as well.

Students have no opportunity to review the evidence. No scrutiny of any action taken by executive is possible.

Salient considers that in all such cases the facts, such as they are, should be available to students.

At present, the evidence on which a student is fined by the executive is known only to executive. The justness of their action cannot be assessed.

Similarly, if no action is taken by executive, students cannot decide if this was wise, since they do not know what facts executive had at its disposal.

Salient does not seek to, and will not, publish the names of innocent parties, But Salient insists that the evidence should be available for public review.