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| Down Under |
| Aussie High Court: Lawyers Are Never Negligent |
| 2005-03-11 |
| Lawyers remain one of the last professions in Australia to be immune from negligence suits after a High Court decision that protects all work connected with a trial. By a 6-1 majority, the court said opening up the work of advocates to lawsuits would be a nightmare for the administration of justice because cases would effectively be retried. The decision drew scathing responses from surgeons, teachers and the dissenting judge, Michael Kirby, who said the court was "out of step with the legal world". English, Canadian and New Zealand courts have removed the immunity, but the court said a central tenet of the judicial system was the "need for certainty and finality of decision ... The immunity of advocates is a necessary consequence of that need." The leading judgement conceded some would view the decision "as a case of lawyers looking after their own, whether because of personal inclination and sympathy, or for other base motives"... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |