Students’ Union law representative resigns

By Riley Hill, February 5 2014 —

George Huang has resigned as the Students’ Union law representative after finding a candidate interested in filling his job for the remainder of the semester.

Huang moved to Toronto in January to attend law school with his fiancée. Before leaving, Students’ Legislative Council voted in a secret ballot to excuse him from meetings until his term expired so he could keep his position. Huang told council he would “still be able to do 75 per cent” of his job through Facebook, though he wouldn’t be able to attend and vote during SLC.

Huang said he was recently informed of a student interested in filling the position. He initially said he could not find a replacement because “not many law students are interested in the SU.”

“It turns out that there actually is a student who is interested in my position,” Huang said. “I can’t reveal the name just yet because of the whole application process. I don’t want to add any bias to it, but I know there is someone who is willing to apply.”

The SU nominations committee will review all applications for Huang’s replacement.

“That will probably happen within the next three weeks, maybe sooner,” said SU vice-president operations and finance Adam Swertz. “It depends how many candidates we have.”

The SU plans to advertise the position on their website, social media and through an email to be sent to all students in the faculty of law. The job pays $350 per month.

Huang’s replacement will not be able to vote at SLC, leaving the faculty without a voting representative until May.

“Law students’ concerns can still be aired out, but because [the new representative] was not elected, they don’t have the authority to vote on [law students’] behalf,” Swertz said.

SU business representative Tyler Hodgson proposed a motion at SLC on Jan. 27 to vote again on Huang’s excusal from SLC. This came after Hodgson proposed voting in a secret ballot in the SLC session that excused Huang for the semester.

“It didn’t feel like we had a good enough discussion about [the excusal] on the last vote,” Hodgson said. “Even if we voted the same way, having that extra discussion would have done some justice.”

Huang said his resignation had nothing to do with the re-vote.

“I actually heard about that after the fact so it didn’t really influence my decision,” he said.

Huang said he is pleased someone stepped in to fill the post.

“I think they will be able to represent the faculty of law better than me because they’re actually physically present,” he said.