The Corporation of Hamilton has been accused of wasting court time and taxpayer money for pursuing a legal case against the Government.

City Hall had requested a judicial review after Government took over financial control of the municipality in December amid concerns of financial mismanagement.

Corporation lawyers this week argued that the review should still go ahead — even though the stewardship notice was lifted by Government three weeks ago.

But at a hearing on Tuesday, attorney Alan Dunch for the Ministry of Home Affairs, declared that the issue was “moot” and academic” — and a waste of time and money.

And Mr Dunch suggested that the elected officials of the Corporation were only continuing the case “to somehow salve themselves in the eyes of the public”.

Addressing Chief Justice Ian Kawaley, Mr Dunch said: “Ask yourself this question. If you were to hear this application and if you were to quash the decision of the Minister and send it back to him, what would happen?

“Nothing, because we have passed that. We have moved on. It would be a complete waste of your judicial time and the public’s money. It should have been dismissed by consent.”

Mr Dunch said the Corporation had always been aware that the stewardship notice was temporary and would eventually be replaced by a set of Financial Instruction “promulgated pursuant to the amendment of the Municipalities Act”.

Those instructions were formulated with the cooperation of the Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer and were now being complied with, Mr Dunch said.

“If you want to go back to the grounds of this application — that everything is unlawful — well that is neither here nor there now,” he said.

“It was predicated on the fact that it was unlawful but that should not cause you to think that this judicial review application should proceed.

“There’s simply no good reason why you should waste your time and the taxpayers’ money in dealing with something that was rendered moot.

“The decision that my learned friend (Corporation lawyer Eugene Johnson) seeks to impugn has effectively been withdrawn. It falls away and has no force or effect.”

But Mr Johnson argued that the situation was still very much live because the Financial Instructions still gave the Ministry of Home Affairs a degree of financial stewardship.

He pointed out that Minister Michael Fahy approved a budget put forward by Corporation administrators — but did not approve a later budget drafted by elected officials.

“The Financial Instructions maintain the stewardship,” Mr Johnson said.

“Those budgets are not similar. if the budget approved by the Minister is maintained, it means the policy-making authority of the Corporation is undermined.”

Mr Johnson also claimed that a review was in the public interest.

“We have to keep in mind the fact that this case was brought with much public fanfare,” he said.

“They [Government] really demeaned the Corporation of Hamilton in the year they took over stewardship. There were claims that councillors were trying to extort money for themselves. That has disappeared, it has fallen away yet the perception is still there.”

Mr Dunch refuted those arguments, saying: “The tragedy here is that the Corporation has to this day yet to understand that, for whatever reason, the Government has taken the position that it is to control at least in part, the Corporation’s affairs. That is the reality of life.

“The other tragedy here is that the councillors of the Corporation are at complete loggerheads with the officers, because what the Minister approved was what the officers presented to him.

“The councillors may be upset by the fact that the budget was one ultimately approved by the Minister but that’s the way it is. They have only themselves to blame.

“The people who run this Corporation presented the Minister with what they thought they needed to run the Corporation and he approved it.

“As to public interest, I get the distinct impression that the only public interest as he sees it is the desire on the part of the council to somehow salve themselves in the eyes of the public — simply in the hope that the mayor and councillors may be able to retrieve their public image.”

The Chief Justice reserved judgement.