A REPORT BY the Attorney General – the legal adviser to the Government – was published yesterday which set out his findings on a strategy to limit payouts to people entitled to nursing home care.
But insofar as the Attorney acknowledges those litigants, he does so only in very general and abstract terms.We learn something about the Attorney’s interpretation of Constitutional principles, but very little about the people who might attempt to challenge those interpretations in court, or about how they are treated in practice.
If survivors cannot band together in a class action, it is because successive governments have declined to legislate for that option. That is, at least in part, how governments have justified the existence of a succession of tribunals, panels and redress schemes in the last decade or more: the State already, in practice, admits the defects in its standard litigation strategy.
Litigants may bring cases because the State has not offered any remedy for a fundamental human rights violation; for instance, some people who spent time in mother and baby homes or who were illegally adopted have embarked on the process of suing the State because it has refused to recognise forcible family separation as a legal wrong.
Very well put. AG hasn't got a leg to stand on, has he? He has been hired to do a job ..but he can't be both defence and judge of right and wrong. Law is law and should not be confused with good or just.
What is stupid - and scary - is that in any sane court of law, there would be protection for a small litigant against a large litigant,,, colour me surprised when this has 'disappeared' during these cases !
Is that a warning from The Journal?