Thoughts on the Rob Ford Conflict of Interest Decision

Toronto Personal Injury Lawyer Albert Conforzi: The Divisional Court of Ontario recently ruled on Rob Ford's appeal of his conflict of interest case. They found that the mayor could not be ousted from office.

The Court ruled that City Counsel did not have the power to compel the Mayor to return the funds that he had collected for his football fund. Accordingly, he could not be found to be in a conflict of interest for taking part in a vote to return the funds in the first place.

The decision itself is quite dry but it is always better to read these things for yourself. There's a good postmortem of the decision's key points here.

The next chapter in the saga will be the cost disposition. Should Paul Magder - the man who brought the suit forward - be hit with the Mayor's legal costs, which will no doubt be exorbitant? It could be argued that this was really a public interest lawsuit, and that the complainant should not be dealt with punitively. On the other hand, it should not be either easy or cheap to challenge a public figure who then must defend themselves and rack up legal bills.

Perhaps if a case such as this has merit, it is something that should be pursued by the Crown Attorney, and not necessarily proceed as a privately driven matter.

In any event, we'll see what happens next. According to Magder's lawyer, Clay Ruby, they will seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Time will tell if the Supreme Court will have a listen, or if the case will finally be put to rest.

Albert Conforzi is a personal injury lawyer with Pace Law Firm in Toronto. His posts generally appear on Mondays.