Dunedin councillor Lee Vandervis' parking ticket has led to a long-running legal saga. Vandervis is on the right. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
A Dunedin councillor who took his own council to the Supreme Court over a stoush that started with a $12 parking ticket has had his application to appeal dismissed and been ordered to pay costs.
Lee Vandervis was issued with a $12 parking ticket in September 2019. He complained about it to the council's customer service before complaining about the employee involved to the chief executive.
That employee then made a complaint against Vandervis with the council's chief executive organising an investigation into the complaint against the councillor.
The investigation found Vandervis breached the council's Code of Conduct on three grounds including by attempting to influence a council employee "in order to benefit his own, or his family's, personal or business interest" by trying to get the parking ticket cancelled.
The council decided to accept the findings and censure Vandervis.
Subsequently, he applied unsuccessfully to the High Court for a judicial review of the council's decision. He then took the matter to the Court of Appeal which was also unsuccessful.
He applied to the Supreme Court for leave to appeal over the finding he attempted to influence a council employee for personal interest.
He challenged four aspects of the decisions of the courts:
- That he knew the details of the complaint against him. The High Court found he was well aware of the nature of the complaint and the Court of Appeal agreed
- Observations made by the Court of Appeal that the council employee had not specifically said that the applicant was attempting to get off a parking ticket
- The finding by the Court of Appeal that Vandervis knew the gist of the complaint against him and that this was sufficient to provide him with an opportunity to respond
- The Court of Appeal's finding that he had an opportunity to contest the report when the matter came before the council
On Friday, the Supreme Court released a judgement saying there was no appearance of a miscarriage of justice.
In reference to the first aspect he was challenging, the judgement said: "The applicant wishes to challenge these concurrent findings of fact. They are clearly matters that are particular to the present case and raise no point of public importance. Nor do we consider there is any appearance of a miscarriage in the way the lower courts dealt with this point."
To the third point, the judgement said the applicant wishes to argue that the Court of Appeal was wrong to find that the applicant knew the gist of the complaint, given that the court had accepted that the request to cancel the parking ticket may not have been made. But, as just noted, the evidence was clear that the council employee told Mr [David] Benham [the initial investigator of the complaint] that the request to cancel the ticket was, in fact, made, and the finding of both Mr Benham and the High Court was to that effect.
Vandervis has been ordered to pay $2500 in costs.