"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Sunday 11 November 2012

Basic Rights Are Inviolate

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  transgression 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.  
  
        

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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.
The 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.

Anonymous said...

To 5:29PM

You 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.