Yesterday the Oz sniped that -
AT this stage, it is hard to know who is responsible for ending the practice of disclosing annual statistics on breaches of the government's own legal services directions.The paper elsewhere states that the government -
Those figures were once published in the annual reports of the Attorney-General's Department and gave a rough guide to whether government agencies were adhering to "model litigant" obligations contained in those directions.
It is worth noting that the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, wants an urgent briefing not just on the apparent breaches of the rules that have been identified by the Rule of Law Institute, but also on the reporting of those breaches.
It is bad enough that courts have been accusing government agencies of conduct that seems to fall well short of that demanded by the legal services directions, but for McClelland's own department to stop publishing details of confirmed breaches sends exactly the wrong message to the rest of the bureaucracy.
The whole point about publishing those numbers was to cause intense embarrassment among those agencies that failed to meet the standard demanded in court.
It was the perfect example of how transparency serves the public interest. It's not very often that McClelland shows his temper, but the long statement he issued when alerted to these problems indicates that some people might have some explaining to do.
If that leads to some government lawyers being carpeted, all the better. Taxpayers expect much more than to have government agencies criticised in court for being "partisan" litigants who make "preposterous" submissions.
The best way to help stamp out that problem is to ensure those agencies that do fall short are named by the Attorney-General's Department.
has been accused of covering up breaches of its model litigant rules that have resulted in a series of government agencies being heavily criticised in court.
Judgments collated by the Rule of Law Institute [PDF] show courts have strongly criticised federal agencies over a series of incidents revealing apparent breaches of the model litigant rules.
The institute said breaches of the model litigant rules would once have been disclosed by the government, but no longer appear in the annual report of the Attorney-General's Department.
After being informed of apparent breaches, Attorney-General Robert McClelland said he took breaches of the government's legal services directions - which contain the model litigant rules - very seriously.
"I have requested urgent briefings from my department as to the cases raised by the Rule of Law Institute and to the reporting of these breaches," Mr McClelland said.
... The Rule of Law Institute chief executive, Richard Gilbert, said [PDF] problems uncovered by the institute justified a review by the Australian Law Reform Commission or the Administrative Review Council.
The model litigant rules require all federal agencies to conduct their legal affairs with efficiency and fairness. ... Figures compiled by the institute from early annual reports of the Attorney-General's Department show disclosure of breaches came to an end after a 289 per cent blowout in the number of confirmed breaches in 2008-09.
"The government should disclose the breaches of the rules because this was always intended," Mr Gilbert said.
