{"id":1363,"date":"2014-01-22T17:09:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/22\/city-will-pay-mayors-lawyers\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:41:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:41:22","slug":"city-will-pay-mayors-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2014\/01\/22\/city-will-pay-mayors-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"City will pay mayor\u2019s lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Executive committee votes to pay for defense of Demers\u2019 eligibility for office<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\n
<\/b>
\nBy Genevi\u00e8ve April<\/b>
www.thesuburban.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Laval will be using public funds to pay Mayor Marc Demers\u2019 legal bills for the upcoming trial that will decide if Demers was\u2014or was not\u2014eligible to run in last November municipal election. <\/p>\n

The mayor faces a lawsuit alleging he wasn\u2019t eligible to run in last year\u2019s municipal election because he hadn\u2019t lived in Laval for 12 months beforehand.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThe Cities and Towns Act clearly states that a municipality has to assume the legal fees to defend a counsellor whose right to fulfil their function is contested or who faces an ineligibility claim,\u201d said the mayor\u2019s spokesperson Fran\u00e7ois Brochu. \u201cSince the legal challenge was filed in December, after Mayor Demers\u2019 election; the City has to assume the cost of his defence.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to Elections Quebec spokesman Denis Dion, though, the law doesn\u2019t permit anyone to challenge a candidate\u2019s eligibility in court until after they are elected, giving the incumbent an advantage, since city taxpayers will always be obliged to dig into their pockets to pick up the tab. <\/p>\n

Elections Quebec is investigating two separate allegations of improprieties during the 2013 Laval municipal election campaign that saw Demers elected. <\/p>\n

The statute states that \u201ca municipality shall assume the defence of a person whose election as member of the council of a municipality is contested or who is the defendant or respondent in judicial proceedings brought before a court by reason of the person’s alleged disqualification for office as a member of the council.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is completely unacceptable, inadmissible,\u201d decried city councillors Paolo Galati and Aglaia Revalakis and opposition leader Jean-Claude Gob\u00e9 in a news release. <\/p>\n

They noted that the law also says that the city can ask for the fees to be reimbursed if the mayor\u2019s alleged act or omission was s a gross or intentional fault or a fault that was not part of his official duties. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my perspective,\u201d said Jacques Foucher in a statement, \u201cwhen a person is prosecuted for an infraction that he committed before taking office, and not in his capacity as elected official, that person should pay the cost of his defense. The city shouldn\u2019t have to pay it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Brochu told The Suburban<\/i> that he did not know how much money the city is now authorized to spend on Mayor Demers\u2019 legal bills, He said that that information might since have been added to the file. <\/p>\n

\u201cLaval voters knew that there was a challenge to his eligibility, but 44 per cent of them cast their ballot for Marc Demers anyway,\u201d advocated Brochu. \u201cI think that [his defeated opponent for mayor] Jacques Foucher [who filed the court challenge last month] should bear the odium of the present situation, since he is disregarding the will of 44 per cent of Laval\u2019s population (sic) and has embroiled the city in this legal battle.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last December, a few weeks after he said that he would respect Laval voters\u2019 will, Foucher unexpectedly reversed his position and petitioned Quebec Superior Court to dismiss Demers from office. <\/p><\/div>\n

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Executive committee votes to pay for defense of Demers\u2019 eligibility for office By Genevi\u00e8ve Aprilwww.thesuburban.com Laval will be using public funds to pay Mayor Marc Demers\u2019 legal bills for the upcoming trial that will decide if Demers was\u2014or was not\u2014eligible to run in last November municipal election. The mayor faces a lawsuit alleging he wasn\u2019t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCity will pay mayor\u2019s lawyers - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2014\/01\/22\/city-will-pay-mayors-lawyers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"City will pay mayor\u2019s lawyers - Newscoverage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Executive committee votes to pay for defense of Demers\u2019 eligibility for office By Genevi\u00e8ve Aprilwww.thesuburban.com Laval will be using public funds to pay Mayor Marc Demers\u2019 legal bills for the upcoming trial that will decide if Demers was\u2014or was not\u2014eligible to run in last November municipal election. 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