The Student Union Judiciary has ruled in the case of In re Diana Aronin that the former Student Union Secretary was "guilty of such breach of constitutional duty as was specified by the Senate" in Resolution F09-3 regarding her failure to present a referendum to the Brandeis community and has ordered that Aronin be removed from office. The UJ released its unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice Judah Marans '11, on Sunday night. The trial was held Jan. 24.

Aronin was impeached by the Student Union Senate for failing to submit to the student body for a vote a referendum on an amendment proposed by Jonathan Freed '09 to establish a midyear senator position. Student Union President Andy Hogan '11 was censured for his role in the failure.

As per the UJ's decision, Aronin was removed from office immediately, and the post of Student Union Secretary is currently vacant. Hogan announced in an e-mail to the student body that a special election will be held to fill the post on Tuesday, Feb. 9.

As published in a previous Justice article, Ryan Fanning '11, who represented the Student Union, argued at the trial that "the Student Union Senate was forced to impeach Secretary Aronin for deliberate abrogation of her duties under the Constitution." After hearing the UJ's decision, Fanning said "I think the Union Judiciary did a good job of ensuring that it was a fair trial and that the opinion was well written and well considered."

Aronin's counsel, Deena Glucksman '11 presented three main arguments to the UJ: She argued that the amendment proposing the creation of the new senatorial position was submitted at an improper time; that the sponsor of the amendment, Jonathan Freed, was not eligible to amend the Student Union Constitution because he was not a Brandeis undergraduate at the time; and that Aronin acted appropriately by following Hogan's directions.

According to the UJ's decision, the court "disagree[s] with Respondent's first argument, find the second to be prima facie valid yet ultimately critically uninvolved and fundamentally flawed, and expressly reject the third."

Aronin said that she still firmly believes that "unless you are a member of the undergraduate student body, you should not be able to amend the constitution because it doesn't apply to you." She continued to say that Freed should have begun the amendment process from the beginning of fall 2009 because his status had changed from undergraduate to graduate student and the sponsors on the amendment were no longer valid.

Aronin said that she was not surprised by the UJ's decision but still felt that she had not "willfully corrupted" the Union Constitution.

She said that the amendment was submitted to her improperly, and she felt like she would have been doing something wrong if she pushed the amendment through.

When asked whether she would take any other action relating to this issue, Aronin said that people were suggesting that she run again but, "at this point, the Student Union and how they have handled this entire situation, I'm really just disappointed in all of them, and it's not something I want to be a part of anymore."

"[Hogan] was not held enough accountable. . I was not trying to hide behind him or put the blame on him; it was just that he did, in fact, take responsibility for it," she said. Although the Union Senate censured Hogan for his role in the failure to submit the referendum, he was not held responsible by the UJ in their decision.

Hogan said in a later interview that the Union needs to move on from the dispute and focus on student concerns. He said "I feel that [Aronin] was a great secretary and did everything we needed her to. While I'm very disappointed at the Judiciary's decision, I understand that they felt they were doing what was constitutional.