A Lake Alice survivor has asked the High Court to review Cabinet’s decision on redress and formally find it breaches his international and domestic human rights.
Flaxmere man Malcolm Richards was drugged, raped, beaten and shocked at the Manawatū psychiatric facility in the 1970s.
He declined a $150,000 redress payment last year, opting instead to legally challenge Cabinet’s decision on the framework as unfair and unlawful.
Richards sat with other survivors and supporters in court today as they heard technical submissions on the judicial review from his lawyer Chris Griggs.
Griggs posed three questions to the court: Is Cabinet’s decision reviewable? Did it breach Article 14 of the United Nations’ Torture Convention and Section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights? And what relief, if any, the court should grant?
Judicial reviews are a legal tool affected members of the public can use to test if an action or decision made by the government or other public bodies abides by the law.
Cabinet decisions are not exempt, and in this case Griggs has argued the court was in a position to review December’s decision because it was made in the context of international and domestic human rights laws.
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