The constitutional review working group for Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) failed to submit a complete report on the current constitution before its deadline this week.
Members of the working group are still writing the remaining parts of the report.
At a meeting of TCDSU council last April, the group’s deadline to submit a report and a draft constitution – if the group members felt one was needed – was extended by six months.
Then-TCDSU President Eoin Hand said at the time that if the new deadline of July 1st was not met, “the group will cease to exist and the deliverables will be never delivered”.
Members of the group are continuing to work on the report despite the fact that the group no longer exists.
Former STEM convener Daniel O’Reilly, who was a member of the group, told The University Times that a report was submitted to Union Forum before the deadline, but parts of the report concerning the draft chapters four and six of the current constitution were not included as the group could not write them on time.
Chapter four of the current constitution concerns union governance. Chapter six covers resignations, removals from office and censure.
O’Reilly said that the actual draft constitution was complete, “but unfortunately, people have lives” and the group members were not able to write a full report on the current constitution.
The missing parts will be “finished officially on our own time”, he said. “As far as our mandate to exist was concerned, we delivered our deliverables in the form that they were in by the deadline.”
“There’s just an agreement between the people who were on the constitutional working group – obviously the constitutional working group no longer exists – but there was agreement between us that even though our mandate to exist has passed, it would be it would be doing a disservice to Union Forum and to students if we didn’t finish off the last few chapters that we missed by the deadline.”
The group was originally tasked with producing a review of the current TCDSU constitution and, “should it see fit”, propose a new constitution to be voted on alongside the 2021 TCDSU sabbatical officer elections.
The draft constitution was completed over the course of a seven-hour meeting last Friday.
In a statement to The University Times, TCDSU President Leah Keogh said: “The review group, whilst completing a large volume of work over the year, did not manage to complete the full review before yesterday’s deadline.”
“At present”, Keogh said, “commentary on chapters 4 and 6, membership of the group, the group processes and the table of contents are yet to be submitted”.
“It should be noted at this stage that all submissions are subject to both Union Forum and Council approval before qualifying for referendum.”
The constitutional review working group has been tasked with reviewing the current TCDSU constitution. Its terms of reference state that the review is being carried out in line with the 2019 to 2023 strategic plan.
One of the goals of the plan is to “review the SU’s Constitution and structures to ensure proper distribution of responsibilities and alignment with the SU’s resourcing model”.
Minutes of the first meeting indicate that the review group is considering the creation of a “totally new document”.
“Should treat as starting as scratch. Nothing is holdover until we decide it is, and nothing at all should be directly copied – improvements can be made everywhere”, Cian Walsh, the then-secretary to council, said at the meeting, according to the minutes.
A majority of those on the last constitutional review working group, which led to 2014 changes to the constitution, were external or non-members of the union. They included then-President of the Union of Students in Ireland Joe O’Connor and former TCDSU officers, including 2010/11 President Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem and 2011/12 welfare officer Luisa Miller.
This year’s group, however, had no external members. The TCDSU president chaired the group and the secretary to council was its secretary.
The union’s education officer and chair of council also sat on the group, as well as three ordinary members selected by application, three ordinary members selected by council and one ordinary member selected by the chair.
The ordinary members selected by appointment were Eoin Forde, Isabelle O’Connor and Leon Caroll. The ordinary members selected by council were Daniel O’Reilly, Mia Brzakovic and Liam Kavanagh.
The administrative officer of the union and the remaining sabbatical officers also attended the meetings.
