Politics & Government

Court Rules Campaign Signs OK in Condo Complex

Wasim Khan wins battle against condo association that tried to ban his political signs.

Wasim Khan is still basking in his big victory.

The New Jersey Supreme Court decided last Wednesday in favor of Khan and his right to hang election signs in his home over the objection of his condominium association.

"We won for the rights of a million fellow New Jerseyans and countless more across the U.S, and tens of thousands [in] Morris County," said an elated Khan, a cancer doctor who consults with pharmaceutical firms and is a current Democratic candidate for the Morris County Board of Freeholders.

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The case came down to a 5-1 ruling that the Mazdabrook Commons Homeowners’ Association violated Khan's right to freedom of expression when it forced him to take down campaign signs for his own Town Council run from the front door and side window of his townhouse.

Khan said he launched the court fight in 2005, when a Superior Court judge ruled that the condo association did have the right to ban signs other than "for sale" ones in the townhome community. A subsequent appellate court decision ruled in Khan's favor, as did the state Supreme Court.

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The case originally started because the homeowners' association told avid gardener Khan that his rose vines were too long.

"They started arbitrarily fining me for the most ludicrous charges like the height of a rose vine being taller than 3 feet," he complained. "It is in the nature of rose vines to grow to several feet in height."

Around the same time, he said, campaign signs were posted in his home.

"I was fined $25 a day for displaying the political signs on my property," Khan said. "This was a draconian order and an act of oppression meant to paralyze my campaign. It suppressed my fundamental rights as an American and me from involving my neighbors as volunteers."

He said the experience was emotionally punishing.

"It was demoralizing and made me feel like a second-class citizen," he said. "It made me feel inadequate for living in a townhouse. And it was a humiliating discouragement to my campaign to bring legitimate issues and concerns to the attention of our neighbors and Parsippany residents."

Khan argues that the signs, while annoying to some, serve an important purpose in a democracy.

"Political signs are considered a 'venerable means of communication' by the Supreme Court of the United States as quoted by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner himself," he told Patch. "This was no trivial matter."

Khan said he stood up against the association, filing suit over the rose vines ("they are another form of expression for me," he explained) and then including the sign issue as an added complaint.

"I protested and told the HOA that I hope we are still living in the good old USA and not in communist China," he said. "In a formal appeal to the HOA's appeals committee I promised them, 'I will resist and fight it all the way to Supreme Court' to protect my legitimate rights to self-expression."

Khan made good on his word, winning on the sign issue in the Appellate Court and then, when the Mazdabrook Commons Association took the matter to the state Supreme Court, he won again.

"It is a win for free speech and a victory for fundamental rights of all Americans," he said. "I would rather die than be deprived of my right to speak my mind honestly and freely. Our intellectual integrity is dependent upon this notion that we can speak freely and without fear and coercion."

And the justices spoke directly to Khan's situation as citizen and candidate. The court held that a “near complete ban on residential signs, which bars all political signs, cannot be considered a minor restriction to Khan” because “it hampers the most basic right to speak about the political process and his own candidacy for office.”

The ruling's immediate impact will be personal for him.

"I shall be able to promote my candidacy from my own property after seven long years during which I wished my political expression was not oppressed in this manner," he said, adding that he wonders still whether having the signs would have made a difference in his unsuccessful previous runs for elective office.

But Khan added that the win is much bigger than him.

"More than a million New Jersey residents of housing association managed communities are now free to post political signs in the windows of their homes as a result of this decision by our Supreme Court," he said. "And I am grateful to the justices for protecting the fundamental rights of the little guy in New Jersey.“

Khan said reaction has been split largely down party lines, with Republicans "crestfallen" and Democrats "jubilant." And some of his neighbors who hadn't been pleased by his suit aren't happy about his win.

"There are calls on Facebook to evict me from my house as a result of this judgment, I am told," he said. "My stars and stripes that proudly flies at my unit was taken down several times. My household tranquility was destroyed by repeated nasty campaigns of hostility over these years."

And he is still upset about the rose vines he said he was coerced into cutting in 2008.

"The HOA president/attorney continued to fine me $25 a day for months," Khan recalled. "The court tried arbitration twice and both times I agreed to whatever arbitrator decided but [the association] refused to accept the arbitrator’s terms. The disgusted judge opened the hearings by turning to HOA team in the court and sarcastically asked, ‘So what was this evil, rampaging rose vine doing?’"

Khan said he and his wife were subject to alleged "terroristic threats" and harassment from association members at home and at Khan's campaign stops. He also accuses the group of potentially damaging his credit over dues payments he withheld during the dispute, even after he said he paid the debt in 2009.

Patch's requests for comment to the association and its attorney have not been returned.

"Still, I am glad that we won [in court]," Khan said.

"I'm glad this may help other people in similar situations."


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