Activity 5u

1. The task word ‘discuss’ require students to consider both sides of something. In this case, ‘discussing’ the ability of the responsibilities of legal practitioners to achieve the principles of justice requires students to write about relevant strengths and weaknesses of legal practioners. Responses will vary according to the arguments selected.

        Arguments in support of the responsibilities of legal practitioners achieving the principles of justice include:

• Representation is important to understand the rules of court and to effectively present and examine the evidence. Lawyers are trained, experienced and not emotionally invested in the case. They play a vital role in investigating the case for their clients, making the best decisions, and presenting to the court the best possible case that gives the court the best chance of being able to reach a fair and correct verdict, because it is given the best materials to work with.
• Even though practitioners also have a duty to the court, the task for lawyers is to gain the best outcome possible for their client, and act on instruction from that client – this dual duty balances well the need to give access to parties with the need to serve justice and overall fairness in terms of the system.
• Experienced legal representation assists parties in presenting their case in the best possible light, which gives parties confidence, and a feeling of adequate access.
• Qualified and experienced legal practitioners can level the playing field across parties of different backgrounds, ages, classes and levels of education – lawyers are more equal in their access to the court and the processes of justice than individual parties from different backgrounds are.
• A lack of legal representation slows down a trial, which reduces access for parties as well as waiting cases, and adds to the responsibilities of the judge.

        Arguments against the responsibilities of legal practitioners achieving the principles of justice include:

• Parties are put in the position, by the demands of the system, where they must be represented. There is virtually no practical choice, given the complexity of justice procedures and the difficulty of formulating and arguing strong legal arguments. This is disempowering and diminishes fairness and equality across the system.
• Justice may belong to the person able to afford the better legal representative, rather than the person who is truly in the right, and this decreases proper access to justice – the adversary system is, after all, a battle of proof rather than a search for the truth, and expensive legal practitioners better equip parties to fight that battle.
• Lawyers can make the process even more adversarial in their quest for the win – they can discourage cooperation because it is not always in the lawyer’s best interests to find a middle ground between parties, or they may believe they can win the case outright for their client.
• The ten overarching obligations were introduced in the Civil Procedure Act 2010 to reduce the ability of parties (especially parties represented by lawyers willing to manipulate the rules for strategic gain) to act in bad faith and deliberately cause delay or otherwise frustrate justice and reduce access for the opposition, however, this culture can take many years to change.

2. The task word ‘evaluate’ require students to consider both sides of something, as well as express an opinion judging the relative strengths of the arguments. For example, a student might argue, based on evidence when referring to the arguments for and against the responsibilities of legal practitioners, that theydo achieve one principle of justice. Responses will vary according to the arguments selected.