Municipality Bans Own Mayor from City Hall.

At least that’s what the Municipality of Sainte-Lucie would probably like to see grace newspaper headlines across the province.

While headline-worthy, the case also tells an important story about the limits of public interest exceptions to injunctive relief.

In September 2018, the Municipality sought a permanent injunction to force its mayor to abstain from workplace harassment, alleging that, since assuming office in November 2017, she had created an intolerable working environment.

The Municipality had apparently retained legal counsel on this issue following a 4-2 vote of the municipal counsel. The Municipality sought to ensure that the mayor would act respectfully towards all employees of the Municipality and the Municipality’s general management.

As an overarching conclusion, the city sought a permanent injunction to “stop ‘harassing all employees and the Municipality’s general management” [our translation].  The Municipality also sought specific conclusions, certain of which would appear, on the surface, to interfere with core aspects of the mayor’s job and restrain the exercise of her office, for example:

• To cease appearing at City Hall during working hours, unless an appointment has been made with Senior Management or a meeting of city councillors is to be held during those hours;
• To stop working directly with the employees of the Municipality, with the exception of general management; and
• To cease to enter directly or voluntarily in contact with the employees and general management of the Municipality for any action and/or reason that is not directly related to her duties as mayor.

The Municipality also sought restrictions on the mayor’s ability to consult documents, such as viewing originals by appointment only, and to prevent the mayor from providing administrative services delivered by the municipality directly to citizens. The Municipality further sought the court’s permission for general management to be accompanied by an additional representative of the Municipality in all future meetings with the mayor.

 The Decision

In the recent 2019 QCCS 2371, the Municipality came one step closer to the conclusions sought, having successfully defended against the mayor’s motion to dismiss the application for being unfounded in law.

The mayor had argued that certain conclusions sought in the injunction were a disguised attempt to strip her of her functions.

The mayor invoked article 513 CCP, which provides that an injunction cannot be granted to restrain the exercise of an office within a legal person established in the public interest except in the cases described in article 329 CCQ.

Article 329 CCQ, for its part, allows the court to prohibit a person from holding office as a director of a legal person on certain conditions.

The Municipality argued that 513 CCP must be interpreted such that it can only be invoked in defence by an officeholder to prevent an injunction where the officeholder is acting within the bounds of legality.  Because the mayor was harassing others in the workplace, she was exercising her functions illegally and therefore could not benefit from the protection afforded by 513 CCP.

The Court held that the injunction sought did not in fact restrain the exercise of the mayor’s office, the implication being that 513 CCP is not engaged at all – the injunction merely sought to enforce the various obligations of the Municipality to ensure a work environment free of harassment, which obligations are themselves inherent limits on the performance of the duties of mayor. The injunction therefore did not seek any supplementary limits on the mayor’s exercise of her functions, but simply sought to enforce the legal limits that already frame these functions.

As for the mayor’s arguments that the conclusions sought were so vague, contradictory or ambiguous as to make them impossible to execute, the Court concluded that these could only be determined on the merits depending on the findings of fact made by the trial judge.

Some might find it hard to accept that banning a mayor from attending City Hall, the seat of local government, during working hours except on appointment, would not interfere with the legitimate performance of her function. The Court, in reaching its conclusion on 513 CCP, looks past the face value of the injunctions towards the intention behind them.

The decision raises some interesting questions. While it is satisfying for addressing what appears to be a real and pressing problem, it could create difficulties in other instances.