Union's first Student Jury set to meet

Wednesday 21-09-2016 - 14:41
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The union’s first ever Student Jury will meet in Week 5 of Michaelmas Term to discuss our approach to sustainability and the scope of our political activity.

Last term our members voted to approve a new way for the union to decide on its policies, and we have become one of only three students’ unions in the country to start using student juries to make decisions.

The first Jury will discuss whether the union should:

  • Do more to protect the environment - including stopping the use of disposable cups in its shop and increasing its charge for plastic carrier bags
  • Become more politically neutral - staying out of debates on international politics and focussing on higher education and cost of living  issues that directly affect students

The ideas selected for debate were submitted via the new Ideas section of the union website, which allows all students to send in their ideas for improvements that can be made to the way the union works.

All ideas that are put forward are discussed by the elected officers who form the Union Executive, with ideas that are expected to be contentious sent to Student Jury for detailed examination.

Randomly-selected Jury members will look at evidence for and against each idea, as well as feedback from other students, and then be asked to discuss the issue and reach consensus on the way forward.

If no consensus can be reached, the idea will go to ‘preferendum’ – an all-student vote with a variety of options available to choose from.

Other ideas submitted by students at the first Executive meeting were either referred to the relevant groups (such as our student media teams) for consideration or passed on the relevant elected officer for further discussion with the proposer.

Vice-President (Union Development) Sophie Tarif said: “We’re looking forward to bringing a group of students together to form our first jury and to debate issues that really matter to our members.

“This is a massive change in the way our decisions are made and it’s going to be interesting to discover what works and what doesn’t. This will be a learning process for all of us and we’ll be refining our processes as we go along to ensure that what we do matches the needs of our members as closely as possible.”

Union Executive will meet fortnightly in term time, with juries taking place at least once a term. Submit your ideas at www.lusu.co.uk/ideas

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