Readers Blog: Removal of student president not democratic

I reckon that only one in six students (4,540) on UCD’s Belfield campus in Stillorgan voted to fire their student union presisent, Katie Ascough. 

That’s a farce by any democratic standards.

But the issue behind this student referendum is also serious. Ascough got legal advice and followed it, opposed by all four other student union officers.

No cabal of four, and no vote of one-in-six students, can decide or rewrite the law of the land.

Nor have they any right to break any law, or obey only those laws they wish to obey. The bench of 26 Roman Catholic bishops, rightly, can no longer either veto or ignore any laws. A fringe of four UCD student union officers is not defensible.

And any doubt about any law is a question for courts to determine, not for anybody else. Information on abortion is no exception.

Tom Carew

Ranelagh

Dublin