MUNICIPAL ELECTION ACT (MEA) - JUDICIAL SYSTEM

So the question is whether the judicial system simply are biased in favour of politicians or have the politicians, in this case provincial ones, written legislation (MEA) with intentional loopholes for them to wriggle out of? Councillor Mark Bauman has failed to file expense reports in four of his five campaigns because he was acclaimed during four of them. His excuse was the excuse of inadvertence/ignorance. Funny how most of us have heard the old adage that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Well apparently it is if it's an election expenses law.

The automatic penalty for failing to file an expense report by the deadline is forfeiture of office plus you can't run in the next election. That is definitely, one would think, quite the incentive to file one's expenses. Apparently not in Mark's case in Woolwich Township. He is of course hiding behind the Municipal Clerk who says she knew no better and failed to send Councillor Bauman his Notice to file his expense report.

The judge seems to feel that inadvertence is O.K. whereas indifference is not. This begs the question as to who would admit to the judge that they knew the requirement but simply expected no one to call them on it? Talk about a very subjective law giving a lot of leeway to the judge based upon how good of a liar the offending politician is? Something is very wrong with this kind of legislation.