Tribunals, Ombudsman, Inquests and Inquiries Flashcards
Routes to accountability
- Tribunals
- Ombuds schemes
- Inquests
- Public inquiries
- Internal complaints mechanisms
- Administrative reviews and reconsiderations
Why does legal accountability matter?
- Improving the quality of decision making
- Ensuring compliance with the law
- Preventing officials acting in own interests or carrying out own biases
- Protecting people in state custody including hospitals / residential care
- Protecting people in public in general
- Preventing unlawful actions by all levels of government
Tribunals
- Independent, statutory, specialist judicial body.
- Hears appeals against specific decisions.
- Can only act when there is a right of appeal / application.
- Decides cases on the substantive merits and CAN substitute its own decision
- deal with specific types of decisions
His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service
The Upper Tribunal
First Tier Tribunal
Employment Appeal Tribunal
- there are different chambers under each except for emplyment as they have a different way of going about it
What if there is no right of appeal?
- Welfare benefits: mandatory reconsideration stage before tribunal appeal.
- talks about universal credit
Tribunal trade-offs
Elliot and Thomas explain that tribunals are:
- Slower and more expensive than internal administrative review…
- More robust and independent than an internal review.
- But judges would be more specialised in that area of law than a high court judge
- but quicker and cheaper than full judicial review;
- Judges are not as well qualified as those in the High Court;
Ombudsmen
- ‘Complaint man’
- Role is to:
1. Investigate complaints of maladministration;
2. Secure redress for injustice caused by maladministration;
3. Identify underlying reasons for maladministration and lessons which should be learned. - public sector: individual complaining against the state
What is maladministration?
- Delay incorrect action or failure to take any action
- failure to follow procedures or the law
- failure to provide information
inadequate record-keeping - failure to investigate
- failure to reply
- misleading or inaccurate statements
- inadequate liaison
- inadequate consultation
- broken promises
Intended advantages of Ombudsman
- Cheaper, less formal and less legalistic than court proceedings.
- Free.
- Inquisitorial.
- Able to investigate lawful but poor service, rudeness, delays, maladministration.
- Will resolve disputes of fact
Ombudsman schemes
- Require you to go to your MP first
- UK main is parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
1. Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman - investigates complaints about government departments, some other public bodies and complaints about NHS hospitals or community health services
2. Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman - investigates complaints about local councils, care homes and some other organisations providing local public services
3. Housing Ombudsman - resolves tenant or leaseholder disputes with social landlord or voluntary member of ombudsman scheme
4. Prisons and Probation Ombudsman - independent investigations into deaths and complaints in custody
Two main functions
- Redress Function: investigating, putting it right and obtaining an apology if appropriate, re individual grievances and complaints.
- Quality Control function: broader role in looking at systemic issues.
- eg. the ‘Debt of Honour’ case; Windrush Compensation Scheme
limitations (caveats) of what the ombudsman can do
- Remedy of last resort - have to go through the body’s own complaints system first.
- Only deals with complaints about the body’s exercise of its public functions.
- No single overarching body that runs the ombudsman schemes.
Can you JR the Ombudsman’s decisions?
Yes for certain decisions
- if they decide not to investigate at all, or not to investigate all issues;
- Lawfulness of the ombudsman’s decision-making process, on normal JR grounds.
- AND of government failure to implement Ombudsmen’s recommendations
Inquests
coroner’s investigation into
a) a person’s death is to ascertain:
who the deceased was;
b) how, when and where the deceased came by his or her death; and
c) certain formal particulars which need to be registered concerning the death.
Article 2: Right to life
- a negative obligation to refrain from taking life AND
- a positive obligation to take appropriate measures to safeguard life
When does the procedural obligation come into play?
positive obligation..gives rise to a PROCEDURAL OBLIGATION to hold a more wide-ranging inquest if:
1. The death occurred in state custody.
OR
2. Where it is arguable on the evidence that substantive duties under Article 2 have been
breached in relation to the deat
Inquest juries
jury is required if a coroner has reason to suspect that the deceased died in state custody and the death was violent or unnatural or the cause of death is unknown
Preventing future deaths
- specific steps that have to be gone through
- research on mental health measures that should(‘ve) be(een) in place
- investigations
- need to respond to the report and must contain certain information clarified in para 7
- report doesnt need to be done for all inquests on if necessary to prevent future deaths
Public inquries
- an inquiry held in public
- usually in relation to some event which are of public concern
- ALWAYS a discretion whether or not to hold one
- BUT the exercise of that discretion might still be challenged on judicial review
Who chairs an inquiry
judges as well as other highly educated
can there be rules for inquiries?
Yes Salmon Commission, 1966 - set out some rules of procedural fairness for witnesses in inquiries
Advantages and disadvantages of inquiries
- A full official investigation outside of either politics or criminal trials;
- Generating the learning and recommendations to change things for the future or prevent
recurrence; - Restore public confidence;
- Create closure or reconciliation.
- They can be very long;
- Expensive;
- Allow governments to deflect / delay criticism?
What are the six routes to legal accountability
- Internal administrative review
- Tribunal appeals
- Ombudsman schemes
- Public inquiries
- Article 2 inquests
- Judicial review
