The Queen's Journal, Volume 143, Issue 25

Page 1

the journal

Queen’s University

Vol. 143, Issue 25

Law Society debates AGM’s legitimacy

F r i day , M a r c h 4 , 2 0 1 6

since

1873

SEXUAL ASSAULT POLICY

J ane W illsie Editorials Editor “A growing number of students [are] expressing concerns that the [Law Students’ Society] is out of touch with its student body,” Law Students’ Society Student Senator Ian Moore said in his year-end report. Moore’s comment came at the end of the Law Student’s Society (LSS) Bi-Annual General Meeting (BAGM) on Wednesday. The majority of the four-hour affair focused on the democratic legitimacy of the meeting itself. The meeting’s original agenda included motions on where to allocate a budget surplus of $25,000, as well as several changes to the LSS’s constitution and budget. However, a protracted debate about the meeting’s legitimacy to decide where to allocate the surplus took up the majority of the meeting, ultimately ending with a vote to put the budget surplus allocation to a student-wide survey. Before the agenda could be approved, students and LSS council members debated for over three hours on whether the gathered body could properly represent the opinions of the greater student body on where to allocate the budget surplus. A motion to put the surplus allocation options to a faculty-wide referendum was presented to the assembled students, but did not pass. An alternative motion to create a binding online survey was passed with several amendments, effectively striking the options for allocating the surplus from the meeting’s agenda. The final motion that passed specifies that the survey be a ranked, preferential ballot administered before March 31. The survey will be administered by the LSS Elections Committee. In support of this motion, law students at the meeting brought up a wide variety of concerns about BAGM’s decision-making ability and legitimacy as a forum for discussion and debate. Some

15 MONTHS LATER Page 2

Three years since a heated trial, McGill has yet to approve a sexual assault policy.

Queen’s Board of Trustees is set to approve a new sexual violence policy at today’s meeting.

Out of the “major” schools in the Toronto Star investigation, only Ryerson and York have implemented a policy.

In November, UBC was outed for mishandling complaints and asking sexual violence survivors to keep quiet.

After 15 months of consultation, U of T announced plans to begin drafting a policy on Feb. 8.

Despite a newly-announced sexual violence policy, York is now facing a human rights complaint from a survivor.

See Students on page 5

FEATURES

OPINIONS

Syrian refugee begins new life in Kingston

page 3 Online:

queensjournal.ca

INSIDE THIS ISSUE SPORTS

POSTSCRIPT

Engagement with The unexpected Indigenous groups takes struggles of selling art more than one-off events

Men’s basketball wins first playoff game in six years

Journal staff wreck their bodies with Tommy’s Burger Challenge

page 7

page 10

page 15

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