University College Dublin Students’ Union held an emergency council today (19th March 2024) to approve a proposed referendum which sought to lower the nominations threshold required to run in the Executive Elections, lower the mandatory quota for Constitutional Referendums to 10%, and allow Class Representatives seeking to retain their position to be elected in the last four weeks of the trimester.
During the discussion of the motion, SU Council made the decision to approve holding referenda to reduce the mandatory quota for constitutional referenda from 12.5% to 10%, as well as one to allow class representatives to be elected in the last four weeks of the academic year to reduce the start of year lag that UCDSU experience.
The emergency council, which took place at the auditorium in the UCD Village in hybrid form, was called last Friday to approve one referendum to cover all three proposed tenants, however, opposition at the SU council meeting led to the referendum being broken into three parts. The proposed constitutional change in reducing the nomination requirement from 150 for college officer and sabbatical officer candidates to 25 and 50 respectively was not passed, with council members citing far higher requirements in other universities.
Quota Requirement Referendum:
The referendum will see the current wording of Article 6.7.1 of the 2019 UCDSU Constitution be amended to reduce the minimum number of students to vote in the referendum for it count, be decreased from 12.5% to 10% of the student population in UCD.
The wording shall be as follows if passed: “A Constitutional Referendum shall be deemed to have passed if the majority of the votes cast at such referendum shall have been cast in favour of the proposal, and not less than 12.5% 10% of the members of the Union shall have cast valid votes at such referendum.”
‘Class Rep Elections’ Amendment:
The referendum will see the current wording of Article 20.1 of the 2019 UCDSU Constitution be amended to allow for class reps to be elected for the next year before the end of their term. This will allow the SU to have class reps in place prior to the start of the academic year.
The old wording read as follows: “The Class Representatives shall be elected annually in elections held in the first four weeks of the first semester.”
The new wording will read as follows: “The Class Representatives shall be elected annually in elections held in the last four weeks of the second trimester. The remainder of Class Representatives, including those in the first year of their programme, shall be elected annually in the first four weeks of the first trimester.”
Voting on these referenda shall take place on the 2nd to 5th of April.
Hugh Dooley – Co-Editor
