UW-Madison Student Judiciary ruled Tuesday night in favor of the Associated Free Thinkers Ensuring Responsibility (AFTER), whose members were charged with the misuse of student segregated fees.
Chief Justice Kathryn Fifield said the judiciary unanimously decided there was not enough evidence to prove any wrongdoing by AFTER group members.
""No segregated fees had been spent so no rules had been broken,"" Fifield said.
Kyle VandenLangenberg, shared governance chair of Associated Students of Madison and a petitioner in the case, had argued the AFTER group, made up of student government members, intended to use the segregated fees to pay for a political advertisement in The Badger Herald.
Matthew Beemsterboer, ASM finance committee chair and one of the AFTER members charged in the case, said the accusers made unsubstantiated claims with no proof.
""I think the strongest evidence in our favor was really that there was very little if no evidence to show that we actually have used segregated fees in this case,"" Beemsterboer said.
In the decision, Fifield said if the court had found evidence of AFTER using fees to pay for the advertisement, the members would have faced punishment.
Fifield pointed out that while this did not happen, the judiciary did make a clear ruling on the illegality of using segregated fees for political purposes.
""The court did want to emphasize that the use of segregated fees in campaigning or advertising in elections is not appropriate,"" Fifield said.
VandenLangenberg said even though the decision did not punish the defendants, his goal in filing the case was met because of that clarification by the judiciary.
""It's more important to be a protector of the appropriate use of segregated fees than it is to simply punish a bunch of people,"" VandenLangenberg said. ""What we really did here is we protected people from abusing segregated fees.""
