A Michigan Student Assembly effort to revamp the document that governs campus life for students at the University has been deemed unconstitutional by the leading campus judicial body.

In a trial that ended late Monday night, the Central Student Judiciary ruled that the Constitutional Convention, which was being organized and executed by top officials from MSA, violates the student constitution. They also ruled that the convention needed to be disbanded immediately.

When the convention was first presented as a resolution during a weekly MSA meeting earlier this semester, Rackham Rep. Kate Stenvig said she did not think it was constitutional. After the resolution passed, Stenvig brought the case to the CSJ.

Student General Counsel Jim Brusstar and Rules and Elections Committee Chair and Rackham Rep. Michael Benson argued the case on behalf of MSA. They served as secretary and vice chair of the convention, respectively, until it was disbanded last night.

The justices found that the creation of the convention was not in compliance with the student constitution, which states that a convention requires its delegates to be elected.

In preparing for the convention, MSA officials opted to invite all students to apply to serve on the Constitutional Conventional, rather than hold a campus-wide election. MSA President Abhishek Mahanti then reviewed students’ applications and selected about 40 students to serve on the convention. These 40 names were then presented to the assembly for approval.

Stenvig applied to serve on the convention in one of the eight seats allotted for MSA representatives but was not chosen by Mahanti.

CSJ ruled that this process did not qualify as an “election,” which the constitution deems mandatory, and the judicial body ruled the current convention invalid.

"CSJ ruled that the convention should be proportionately represented by school or college and serious questions were raised about whether or not student organizations should be represented at all,” MSA Vice President Mike Rorro wrote in an e-mail to MSA members after the ruling.

Stenvig’s legal representation, Joyce Schon, argued that including so many MSA members in the convention would just advance the majority party’s agenda.

“I think that the current MSA leadership that organized the convention in this manner has been making a series of attacks on the basic democracy and free speech that the MSA constitution provides to students,” Stenvig said.

Stenvig is a leader of the Defend Affirmative Action Party — a party that has held MSA representative seats over the past several years but has never won executive seats. Though they are no longer affiliated with a party, Mahanti and Rorro both ran with the Michigan Vision Party. Two of the eight MSA representatives appointed to the constitutional convention are MVP members.

Schon asserted in the proceedings that different voices are required to update the constitution in an effective manner.

“The reason an election is required is for constituents to elect them,” Schon said. “That’s the only way changes are going to be made.”

Rorro, who served as chair of the Constitutional Convention, said after the meeting that MSA has other means of proposing amendments to the student body, though they are less efficient.

The student body must vote on any amendment to the constitution, no matter how small. The constitution requires one of three methods for an amendment to be added to the ballot, so that it can be voted on by the entire student population.

MSA can garner a two-thirds majority vote to get amendments added to the campus-wide ballot. Alternatively, a student or student group can petition MSA to add proposed amendments to the ballot.