10 March 2005

Barristerial immunity

Lai v Chamberlains

The Court of Appeal has removed (civil) barristerial immunity in NZ. Still don't know where I stand on the main issue.

(More?) interesting sub-issues though:
- Should the overruling be prospective or retrospective? (Real questions of legal certainty and people's expectations here)
- Should the Court of Appeal be able to overrule its previous decisions? Or should it now kick things up to the Supreme Court?
- Should I have listened all those years ago in Law and Society when we did "right"/"no-right" "privilege"/"duty" "power"/"disability" "immunity"/"liability"?

PS cf the decision of the Australian High Court a couple of days later: D'Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid [2005] HCA 12

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Course Outline

Lord Justice Lawton in Maxwell v Department of Trade and Industry [1974] 2 All ER 122 said:

"From time to time ... lawyers and judges have tried to define what constitutes fairness. Like defining an elephant, it is not easy to do, although fairness in practice has the elephantine quality of being easy to recognise. As a result of these efforts a word in common usage has acquired the trappings of legalism: 'acting fairly' has become 'acting in accordance with the rules of natural justice', and on occasion has been dressed up with Latin tags. This phrase in my opinion serves no useful purpose and in recent years it has encouraged lawyers to try to put those who hold inquiries into legal straitjackets.... For the purposes of my judgment I intend to ask myself this simple question: did the [decision-maker] act fairly towards the plaintiff?"


This course examines the elephantine concept of fairness in the law, along with other contemporary legal issues.

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