Press Release

When should an individual be able to obtain redress against a public body which has acted wrongfully?

10 October 2006

The law relating to redress is complex and controversial. The Law Commission today publishes a scoping report on Remedies Against Public Bodies. This project will ask what an individual’s substantive legal rights to a remedy should be and what mechanisms should be available to receive redress.

Kenneth Parker QC, the Commissioner in charge of the project, said This scoping report is the beginning of an important project that will review the principles of state liability to citizens. The project seeks to ensure that aggrieved citizens receive appropriate redress while balancing this against the needs of effective public administration. We are interested in addressing what principles should inform the liability of the state and examining the relationship between public law and private law.
Currently, aggrieved citizens can seek compensation or other remedies against public bodies in a wide variety of circumstances. Where the case involves the exercise of Governmental functions, such as the decision to take a child into care, the position becomes complicated. In public law, when a citizen challenges a decision by a public body, they cannot claim monetary compensation unless their human rights have been violated or there is a substantial breach of EC law. However, in private law, remedies are more readily available where negligence is alleged.

The project will be concerned centrally with liability for those activities which are of a truly Governmental nature – policy making or the implementation of policy making involving a significant exercise of discretion. It is not concerned with the ordinary liability
of public bodies in circumstances identical to those in which a private citizen or company would be liable.

This is a problematic area of the law which warrants a full investigation.

A consultation paper seeking provisional proposals for reform will be published by the end of 2007.