Karygiannis to appeal to top court
Ex-councillor wants seat back as he tries to take case to Supreme Court
Former councillor Jim Karygiannis will go to the highest court in Canada to try to get his Toronto city council seat back, the Star has learned.
Lawyer Adrienne Lei, with Toronto firm Dewart Gleason LLP, confirmed she has instructions from Karygiannis to seek leave to appeal the decision that saw the Scarborough-Agincourt representative again booted from office.
His legal team will also ask the court to put the recent decision that ruled against him on pause — what’s called a stay — while he attempts to have his appeal heard at the Supreme Court. The stay, if granted, could temporarily return Karygiannis to office while the appeal is considered.
Reached by phone Friday, Karygiannis refused to comment to the Star.
On June 24, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal ruled a lower court judge had erred when he returned Karygiannis to office following his automatic ouster for campaign overspending.
That has been the latest twist in a long legal saga that dates back to the 2018 municipal election.
Karygiannis filed paperwork that showed he overspent a strict campaign limit by nearly $26,000.
That, under provincial law, caused him to be automatically removed from office in November 2019, just a year after he won his seat.
Later that month, Karygiannis applied to the Superior Court to be reinstated and won, despite opposition from Toronto resident and fair elections advocate Adam Chaleff that the error had not been inadvertent as Karygiannis claimed.
Chaleff, who has also requested a compliance audit of Karygiannis’ extraordinary expenses after reporting from Toronto.com’s and the Scarborough Mirror’s David Nickle, filed an appeal of that decision.
The Court of Appeal sided with Chaleff’s legal team, finding the Superior Court judge did not have the jurisdiction to return Karygiannis to office under the law, and that the rules as written that lead to automatic forfeiture of office in cases like this is what the legislators intended.
Karygiannis’s only option now to get his seat back is to appeal to the higher court, which typically hears cases of significant public and national interest.
At present, he is no longer a councillor and will not be in attendance at council meetings on Monday and Tuesday.