An Open Letter to the VUWSA Executive

In the interest of upholding the Constitution of MSSA, I would like to draw your attention to the following points.

Under Part G S.13 of the constitution of VUWSA. the Executive has the jurisdiction and authority over any affiliated body, of which MSSA is one.

At the MSSA Annual General Meeting on 15/9/73, it was moved that voting rights be granted to all persons present at the meeting. This motion was carried by a voice-vote of those present and not by its ordinary members only. It is respectfully submitted that this contradicts Article 9 (IV) of the constitution of MSSA which provides that only ordinary members have voting rights. In fact, or so it seems to me, what that motion did was to alter Article (IV) without recourse to constitutionally means as provided in Article l1 of the said constitution. Thus, those who were not constitutionally entitled to vote voted. This makes the AGM (and the general election) null and void: Lane V Norman (1891 ) 66 L.T. 83.

Mr Chua, the chairman at the meeting, stated that he put two absentee votes into the ballot box. To the best of our knowledge there was no indication that s.35, s. 36, s. 37 of VUWSA (schedule 2) were compiled with. Hence is the declared result of 83—69 be taken as final? Please clarify.

There is no necessity to invoke section 51 of VUWSA (schedule 2) because once the AGM is declared null and void, the general election being included in the AGM (unlike the VUW general election which is an event independent of an AGM) is necessarily null and void.