Sundy drift with WLR relevance...
In the Friday Oz newspaper's legal section there was an article titled
'Rule of Law wants governments to play by litigant rules':
New laws are needed to ensure governments do not abuse their power in litigation, according to the Rule of Law Institute.
The call for legislative change comes after the Productivity Commission this week found compliance with the Model Litigant Rules, which required governments to uphold the highest standards of fairness, honesty and integrity, was patchy.
R.O.L.I. chairman Robin Speed said stronger enforcement was needed to ensure government agenciues did not crush their opponents by unfairly using the resources at their disposal.
“There can’t be anything more intimidating than the commonwealth as an defendant, be4cause what it can do in resources is kill you in one way or another, or drag things out or not enter into fair negotiations,” he said.
R.O.L.I has handed a legislative blueprint to Attorney General George Brandis that would allow the courts to enforce model litigant guidelines.
Mr Speed said the Productivity Commission’s draft report had shown new enforcement measures were needed, and there was not enough incentive for agencies to comply with the rules.
“Clearly, the present system of internal review has not worked effectively or consistently, ” he said.
The Attorney general’s department appears not to want the job of monitoring other departments.”
Mr Speed met with Senator Brandis before Christmas to discuss possible changes to the existing framework and sent a proposed Bill to the Attorney general earlier this year.
He said if the Bill were adopted, it would be up to the courts to decide on an appropriate remedy for any breach of the model litigant rules.
The productivity Commission has sought advice on whether the model litigant rules should apply in other cases where there is a power imbalance, for example those involving large corporations or self represented litigants.
Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said in his experience the commonwealth had a high level of compliance with model litigant guidelines.
Now I know the subject of the MLR, in regards to CAsA, has been done to death on here but this could be an opportunity to highlight the middle finger approach FF takes to their obligations to act as a Model Litigant, Stan seems to think so..
:
COMMENTS:
Stan van de Wiel,
…..there was not enough incentive for agencies to comply with the rules…. What kind of incentive are these creatures after, praise, payment on top of their bloated salaries. What about professional conduct. …….."Mark Dreyfus said in his experience the commonwealth had a high level of compliance with model litigant guidelines”…… The commonwealth should have an absolute level of compliance. If Surgeons or Pilots were to conduct themselves in such manner there would be deaths. Why are Judges condoning such methods, can’t they recognise them from professional conduct or is it because all judges have come up under a similar system and regard this behaviour as the ethical norm.
And PAIN suggests referring to the ProAviation WLR submission for some classic examples:
PAIN_NET Food for thought for those aggrieved IOS members amongst us??
