Councillor Brian Skakun was in BC Supreme Court on Tuesday to ask Mr. Justice Robert Crawford to stop Prince George city council's attempts to punish him.
Council, it was testified in the morning session of court, has indicated its intention to pursue sanctions against Skakun for his leaking of a private document to the media three years ago. For this he was convicted in court in May (the matter is under appeal) and he was assessed a fine.
"Why? It has already been done," said Skakun's lawyer Jon Duncan as to council's plans to add their own punishments. They generally include banning him from the acting-mayor rotation, curtailing his travel, and disqualifying him from participating in council-appointed committees and boards.
Furthermore, Duncan said, neither the Local Government Act nor the Community Charter has provisions allowing any city council to issue punishments to a sitting councillor for a matter such as this.
"There is no statutory basis for what the city is trying to do here," said Duncan. "Judges punish. Regulatory boards [like the B.C. Securities Commission or B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons or the RCMP] punish when given that ability through legislation. But not legislators. Our own Parliament has rejected that [in the cases of Clifford Olsen and Carla Hamolka]. They do not pronounce punishments on individuals; that is what courts are for."
Duncan spent about three hours outlining the previous court cases that supported his argument.
So, too did the City of Prince George's legal counsel Barry Williamson. His side of the case was not complete by the time court closed for the evening. He will resume arguments this morning and said he expected to be finished by noon.
His chief position already, on behalf of the municipality, is that indeed there are statutes that provide a mayor and council with the authority to impose penalties such as those outlined for Skakun because they were only symbolic in nature and did nothing to block Skakun from performing his elected duties.
"There is an oath of office...and a requirement to uphold that oath," Williamson said. "In each of these [suggested punishments] there is a power of appointment and if council has the power to appoint then equally it must implicitly have the power to remove that appointment."
Fairness of the procedure itself was also at issue, said Duncan, meaning that the reason for the lack of any punitive authority in provincial legislation was to ward against councils using such power to tamper with the electoral process. He said he was concerned about that happening now, since all this was happening on the cusp of the next municipal election.
"This, too, should give concern to the court," he said. "The timing right now underlines just how easy it would be to abuse for improper purposes."
