As part of a campaign promise made last year, DU’s student government now includes a judicial branch.

Undergraduate Student Government Senate President Antoine Perretta and fellow senators believe that a judicial branch in a necessary component of student government.

“[It] will hold Senate and student organizations accountable for their actions through a judicial branch that can serve in a presumably non-biased way,” Perretta said. 

Last year USG’s Constitution Task Force reinstated DU’s original judicial branch, which was last active in the 1980s.

“There were a series of events that occurred over the last couple of years that would have been perfect for the judicial branch,” Perretta said. “I think it would streamline our processes in terms of accountability.”

Perretta hopes that the creation of the branch will steer the school away from “controversy as to how a situation should be dealt with.”

Student governments at other universities have judicial branches with student judges who oversee individual cases of student violations.

Perretta does not expect DU’s to do the same.

“We know we will be seeing, for example, a student organization that violates a policy, but an individual student case probably will not appear in the near future,” he said.

Students have been working on the USG Constitution since the summer in order to accommodate this new judicial branch.

The judicial branch has not  been officially created. The project is still in the planning process. USG’s goal is to have the branch active by the beginning of winter quarter.

Students interested in getting involved with the branch should contact the Undergraduate Student Government Senate.