The Associated Students Judicial Council did not find Internal Vice President Enri Lala to be negligent in his duties of overseeing the honoraria or payment process, according to its Feb. 17 decision.
The A.S. Judicial Council did not find IVP Enri Lala to be negligent in his duties of overseeing the honoraria or payment process. Nexus file photo
UC Santa Barbara alum and former Associated Students (A.S.) Attorney General (AG) Taylor Iden filed a petition on Dec. 11, 2025, accusing fourth-year history and global studies double major Lala of violating A.S. Legal Code by “failing to fulfill various required duties related to the Association’s honoraria procedures.”
As outlined in A.S. Legal Code, the Internal Vice President (IVP) is tasked with three honoraria procedures. The Judicial Council (JC) found that Lala failed to create and distribute honoraria forms by Week 7 of fall quarter, convene an honoraria committee meeting to review and investigate honoraria applications and issue an honoraria recommendation to the Senate by Week 9.
Lala stated that he delayed the honoraria process in anticipation of the Bill to Modernize Honoria passing in the Senate, which would digitize the honoraria process. The Senate adopted the bill at its Jan. 7 meeting.
The main petitioners, Iden and current AG and fourth-year political science major Natalia Pascher, stated three desired remedies for the “negligence.” The first was a JC directive requiring immediate distribution of forms and initiation of honoraria procedures if the bill failed. Additionally, they requested a reduction of the IVP’s stipend up to 50%, at the JC’s discretion. Lastly, they requested a formal apology issued by Lala acknowledging the impact of these “violations” and probationary status for 10 academic weeks.
While the JC found that Lala did not uphold all his honoraria responsibilities, it clarified that the case did not ask whether the IVP met every requirement of A.S. Legal Code, but whether his actions constituted negligence. Legal code defines negligence as “knowingly failing to fulfill required positional duties as outlined by Legal Code.” Negligence does not equal non-compliance, and would require proof that Lala intentionally avoided his responsibilities.
Iden testified that under the previous honoraria system, payments had “not been effectively disbursed” and that “backlogs were commonplace.” Lala helped draft the bill to digitize honoraria to make the process more efficient.
Since Lala’s decision to delay the honoraria process “arose not out of a deliberate intent to disobey legal code, but out of a desire to prioritize quality of review over timeliness,” the JC did not find his actions negligent of his duties.
During the delay, Lala sent out an A.S.-wide email to inform the Association of the reasoning for the honoraria delay, which included an understanding of the “importance of his responsibilities regarding honoraria” to the JC.
Furthermore, legal code states that the AG acts as the chief legal counsel to the Senate, which includes the IVP. The JC alleges that Iden did not inform Lala of his failure to comply with the legal code within 25 days following his failure to distribute honoraria forms by Nov. 10, 2025. Meanwhile, Iden continued to attend meetings where the bill was discussed. The JC stated Lala was given insufficient counsel on his failure to complete his duties.
A version of this article appeared on p. 3 of the Feb. 26, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.
