Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Conservatives make themselves look bad in Robocalls case

With politics the adversarial sport it has become, it’s no wonder the Conservatives are putting up as strong a legal defense as they can muster against the Council for Canadians’ court challenge, which seeks to overturn election results in seven close ridings that the council says were influenced by Robocalls.

And part of putting up the strongest defense possible is moving to have your accusers’ lawsuit thrown out of court before it even gets started — for procedural reasons and/or (the “and/or” pops up a lot in motions to dismiss) for lack of merit.

So I understand why the Conservatives’ lawyer argued to a Federal Court in June that the council’s application should be rejected because it came too late, and because the council is just trying to use the suit as a PR stunt that will boost donations. He might even be right.

But what might have happened if the Conservatives had thrown sound litigation strategy out the window, and decided instead to take the high road? What if their court filings had granted the need for a review of the electoral results to restore the public’s confidence in the electoral process, and argued only that the outcome of the election would not have changed absent the Robocalls?

The optics of the whole thing would be so much better. The party would be saying: “Hey, we understand why voters want to be sure that their elected officials won their seats fairly, and we do too. We have nothing to hide. We will prove to you that the right people are sitting in Ottawa.”

Instead, the Conservatives have now come out on the losing end of a court decision that makes them sound like they think democracy is a bothersome trifle to be brushed aside when it gets in the way.

Thursday, Federal Court Justice Martha Milczynski ruled that the council’s suit could go ahead. In doing so, she remarked: “Far from being frivolous or vexatious, or an obvious abuse, the applications raise serious issues about the integrity of the democratic process in Canada.” The ruling leaves the impression that the council and the court think the integrity of the country’s electoral system is important, while the Conservatives don’t. The more important part of the case will come later, of course, when the debate focuses on whether the outcome in any of the ridings was actually affected by the Robocalls. In this area, I believe the Conservatives have the strong upper hand.

But if they do have the upper hand, then was it really worth it to make the argument that verifying the validity of federal election results which lack public confidence is trivial? And if they don’t have the upper hand, then they should be admitting as much and calling for a byelection rather than contesting the suit.

It is inevitable that the Conservatives — by virtue of scrapping to keep a court from reviewing electoral results that have raised questions — will take on an air of trying to pull one over on the public. They’re not. But it’s their own doing that it looks that way.

Original Article
Source: national post
Author: Marni Soupcoff

No comments:

Post a Comment