Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What
Price The Oath of Office.":
What puzzles me is that it takes a
resident to use their own resources in order to hold the government accountable.
How can Council's Code of Conduct, the Charter of Rights, the Municipal Act and
the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act be upheld if it takes private resources
to fight public resources ? It really makes you wonder how safe our basic rights
are.
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The basic right above all others, is the right to vote . WE choose who to represent us for a term of office.
Once done, the choice is sacrosanct.
Undoing the will of the electorate cannot be allowed.
No authority can supersede the voters' right to choose.
No government mechanism can be created to undermine the principle.
That's why civil action by a citizen or group of citizens, who perceives his/her/their rights have been transgressed by politician or politicians, acting outside the rules and regulations is needed for transgressions to be dealt with by a court of law.
It doesn't happen often.
It should never happen.
The idea that people elected to a position of trust and authority to govern others in the conduct of their daily lives, are not themselves to be trusted to abide by rules and regulations that govern their conduct, is a contradiction and an aberration.
Members of the last Council did that.
The town is one hundred and fifty years old.
No-one ever did that before,
An election took care of part of the problem. Not all.
There are still those who believe what they did was right.
At the time of the election, facts were known as well as they could be.
Still voters made a decision to re-elect.
What instrument can a public institution create to inhibit free will of the voters that would not be an infringement of their rights.
Using public resources, to pursue private litigation, against residents, sworn to be protected and represented by an Oath of Office has been clearly argued against.
A litany of febrile excuses and denials have been set forward in defense.
We await the decision to determine merit in the Conflict of Interest Act and regulations. .
Senior levels of government have four year terms of office.
If need presents. they can go back to the public for a vote of confidence. They can cut the term short.
Four year terms for municipal Councils provide no such option. .
If a rogue Council gets elected, sufficient damage can be done in four years may be such as never to be undone.
Municipalities are creatures of the Province .
And so are the mistakes.
The Municipal Act is fine in theory. But it remains largely untested. There is simply insufficient case history for lawyers threading their way through it. They must rely upon what a judge will/will not accept.
ReplyDeleteThe same holds true with the SLAPP law. The Aurora case is setting precedents which other lawyers can track.
That leaves Evelyn's case about which I know nothing. But I suspect it is also in uncharted water.
In legal terms, being the fore-runner is not a great place to hold. It is dangerous and unpredictable.
Any town willing to take over from Aurora is welcome to do so.
To 5:29PM
ReplyDeleteYou make a very good point about sailing in uncharted waters. It's a risky business.
Today's Toronto Sun ran a story on the dangers of launching litigation and once again Aurora was an example of how things can go oh so wrong. Look for the following headline: "Lawsuits expensive and can backfire - litigator beware". It's a good story but you should also note that the costs incurred by Morris are actually much higher than quoted in the story and the cost to the town were not even mentioned.
Georgina also took a crack at a town funded defemation lawsuit with the Mayor acting as Council's front person and that apparently didn't work out too well either.
I doubt very much that you can legislate common sense. If the intent of the Charter of Rights isn't even understood or repected by elected officials and their legal staff, there may be no hope other than blind faith in future elections.