Toronto Mayor Ford Keeps Job, But Far from Vindicated ? The ...

Toronto mayor Rob Ford will apparently be keeping his job. An appeals court has overturned a previous court decision that had said that Ford had violated the province?s conflict of interest law.

The decision came down today from the Divisional Court which heard Ford?s appeal of his November conviction. The panel of three judges has now concluded that the original trial judge had made an error in finding Ford guilty under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.

Many Torontonians were bewildered by the original verdict, and by the fact that it could result (as required by the Act) in Ford?s removal from office and a multi-million dollar by-election. Ford?s offence, after all, was hardly armed robbery. He was merely accused of participating in a city council vote on a relatively small financial matter. The question under consideration at that vote was whether he, Ford, should return a few thousand dollars? worth of donations that the city?s integrity commissioner says were improperly gathered. So it?s not as if Ford had stolen the money, or embezzled it. And garnering the donations was not itself a legal offence. The problem lay solely in his having voted on this matter, a matter in which he had a personal stake. Many people wondered how it could be that Toronto could lose its duly elected mayor over such a small procedural matter.

But bewilderment about that initial verdict says more about public understanding of conflict of interest than it does about the substance of this case. Conflict of interest isn?t about numbers; it?s about loyalty. And when we think someone has violated a conflict of interest rule it?s not necessarily because we think he or she has made an improper decision, but rather that we think he or she has failed to keep personal business and official duties separate, and that as a result we cannot be sure about what factors may have influenced that decision. It is also, in the end, about public faith in the decision-making processes of our most important institutions.

Be that as it may, today?s decision means that Ford is not guilty of violating the Act, and hence gets to keep his job. My non-lawyer?s understanding of the verdict is this. The decision seems to turn on a technicality. Ford had been accused of wrongfully participating in a February 2012 debate and vote by Toronto city council over whether he, Ford, should return the improperly-gathered donations. A council vote 2 years earlier had required Ford to pay back that money. But, according to today?s ruling, Council didn?t have the authority to engage in that earlier vote. So it was legally null ? effectively, it never happened at all, from a legal point of view. And if the earlier vote ?didn?t happen,? then the February 2012 vote that essentially responded to that earlier vote was really moot. And if that vote was moot, it cannot have been improper for Ford to participate.

But the court?s decision today is far from a vindication. Ford keeps his job on a legal technicality, the sort of thing that a layperson could never foresee from a reading of the plain wording of the relatively brief and clear Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.

That?s fair enough, from a procedural point of view, but it doesn?t mean that the mayor didn?t do anything wrong. He still took part in a decision in which he had a personal stake. And as a man in a position of power and trust, he not only should not have done so, but he should have known better than to do so. Even if he knew in his heart that his vote in the matter was unbiased, he should have known that that?s beside the point. What matters is that trust in the system requires decision makers to remove themselves from decisions that pertain to their own affairs. Doing so is essential for maintaining public trust in the system.

We can only hope that Ford will proceed now with uncharacteristic humility, and with more eagerness to learn the rules that govern his position than he has thus far demonstrated.

Like this:

Be the first to like this.

Source: http://businessethicsblog.com/2013/01/25/toronto-mayor-ford-keeps-job-but-far-from-vindicated/

daniel tosh Jason Kidd All Star Game 2012 directv rashard lewis curacao curacao