There was no shortage of disturbing things to reflect on back in 2012 when Mayor Rob Ford was in court facing charges under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.

There was what the judge in that case called the “ignorance,” “stubborn sense of entitlement,” and “wilful blindness” of our mayor, qualities displayed in gobsmacking detail through his day of stupefied testimony. There was the lack of discretion in sentencing that meant in the event of a guilty verdict, the minimum penalty was removal from office, no matter the scale of the wrongdoing. But more than anything else, there was the realization that the most important integrity laws protecting democracy from corruption in Ontario cities depend entirely on private citizens to act as both investigators and prosecutors.

That last reason is the one that makes me most relieved to hear that the provincial government confirmed this week that it is considering revising the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. It was a problem evident not just in Ford’s case, but also in the prosecution in 2013 of Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion. A few things about the law should be changed. But it strikes me as particularly urgent that this aspect be addressed.

To understand why, it’s first important to grasp how important ethics laws are to the functioning of a democracy. Conflict of interest laws protect us from corruption, ensuring that those entrusted with our government make decisions in the interests of the public unclouded by considerations of their own personal benefit. Knowing that they do so — and are forced to do so by the law — is among the only things that can allow people to trust that the system will work fairly (even if it doesn’t always act wisely). And the faith of the public in the fairness of the system is an absolutely essential element of a democracy.

So a law like the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act guards against corruption directly, but is also an absolute pillar of the functioning of the entire system. That’s how important it is.

Yet we have no civil servant, or branch of the civil service, who enforces the law. No police force. No integrity commissioner. No one. It’s not just that they don’t have to, it’s that no official is even allowed to investigate possible conflicts of interest or prosecute cases where they are apparent. The law demands that a private citizen do the investigation and bring the charges forward to a court in a private prosecution.

This is perverse for a number of reasons. It takes a lot of time, expertise, and money to investigate an offense and bring it to court. Someone has to not just spot a potential conflict, but undertake gathering evidence and building a case all on their own, never mind that private citizens don’t even have many of the powers you might want to investigate the private financial holdings of a politician, for instance.

Even in a case where the information to demonstrate a conflict is accessible, and a private citizen has the money, connections to legal expertise, and leisure time to spend playing cop and crown prosecutor’s office, who is motivated to do that? Almost no one, except partisan political opponents of an offender.

Which means that cases that get investigated and taken to court will almost always have partisan political motives — often obvious ones — behind them. People complained in the Rob Ford case that activists who hated his political agenda were trying to use the courts to remove him from office, which they were. But what was lost in that formulation is that the law is written in a way to ensure that that will pretty much always be the case. Even in the most clear-cut case of horrible corruption, the complainant will usually find it only because they’re pursuing a political vendetta.

So: the rules that are meant to safeguard us from the ulterior motives of politicians depend for enforcement on people with ulterior motives. That’s crazy. It undermines public faith in the system — faith the law is meant to preserve.

Either a branch of the police force, or an independent municipal or provincial officer should be charged with receiving complaints, investigating them, and bringing them to court when there is enough evidence to suggest a breach has occurred. That’s how we handle most of the important laws in our society, such as criminal code violations, because they allow us to believe things serve no interests except for those of justice. Certainly the integrity of democracy deserves the same consideration.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire