Justice – definition: just behaviour or treatment
‘a concern for justice, peace and genuine respect for people’
Oxford English Dictionary
A common belief is that a civilised society designs systems by which justice can be delivered and injustice punished as a mark of ‘genuine respect for people’. Administrative law is just such a system created to protect citizens from the abuse of government power. It operates through courts, tribunals, ombudsmen and commissions with access via a complaint process which must first be followed according to the stages laid down. Given that there is a pre-determined right to justice in our civilised society why is it that the pursuit of justice is a lengthy and soul-destroying fight? [1]
Who are we fighting and why is it so difficult to win?
Public confidence.
Some countries are totalitarian states. Despotic rulers dictate to the citizens and any opposition is brutally suppressed. You know where you stand in these regimes and there is no clamour for ‘justice’ just an acceptance of the status quo. We don’t act in this way in the UK. We are a democracy and operate through legislation devised for the benefit of the public with state-funded regulatory bodies to hold public servants to account. That at least is the given narrative but in fact, UK democracy relies not on the actual delivery of rights but on ‘public confidence’ that this is the case. It is vital that people believe themselves to be safe and believe that those with authority over them are benign (possibly inept but not deliberately malicious). Public confidence works best when we have shared values so the importance of concepts such as justice, truth and honesty are reinforced through family, education and religion from an early age. Believing in such notions becomes so fundamental to our health and well-being that we will deny or dismiss actual evidence to the contrary until we experience injustice first-hand. Which is helpful to those in positions of power who are required to ‘restore public confidence’when some unfortunate scandal seeps into the public domain. Restoring public confidence should not be confused with putting things right. Public inquiries rarely put things right but they defuse the heat of the moment with words of regret and sweeten the future with the promise that ‘lessons will be learnt’.
Twitter – an angry pool of justice seekers.
Twitter is awash with people calling for justice. They will explicitly use the word ‘justice’ to head up their campaigns and it is clear that they expect the state to deliver on their promise. By the time they turn to Twitter they have found that the official complaint process has failed to deliver anything which looks like justice, in fact, it has likely delivered the very opposite with hostile attacks aimed at discrediting the victim in order to defend public organisations from reputational damage. Our ingrained belief in the notion of justice has not prepared us for this shock and many never recover their emotional and physical health as a result. We are convinced, because we have evidence of wrongdoing, that we have a right to justice and when it is not forthcoming we reach out far and wide to find the one person, the one authority who can deliver it. The state rhetoric of justice is so pervasive that it can take many, many years to accept that justice will never be forthcoming no matter how strong the evidence or how great the determination. It is a bitter pill to swallow and it requires a re-evaluation of our core beliefs in a most painful way.
Accountability theatre.
What if ‘justice’ doesn’t exist? What if it is nothing more than a social construct which has been instrumental in ensuring public confidence and thereby public compliance with rules and regulations? Is there any evidence to support such a theory? Historically there is a plethora of gross injustice to choose from where the powerful take unhindered advantage of the powerless. The first to spring to mind is slavery, which allowed a select group to build fortunes from free labour and the continued discrimination along ethnic lines which remains with us today. Then there are the Inclosure Acts [2] which gave the rich the right to take and own common land; an aspect of history often neglected in the school curriculum. The subjugation of women is an injustice which blights over 50% of the population. Women were denied the right to vote through 40 years of peaceful campaigning and there has been a continual fight for equal pay and opportunity since. It is interesting to note that although the Suffragettes are said to have ‘won the vote’ for women the change in policy came at the end of the first world war when women had proven to be both essential and cost-effective in the workplace. More recent injustices would include Hillsborough and Gosport where campaigning families have sacrificed years of their lives to reveal the truth about the way in which their loved ones died and who are now raising funds to fight their own court cases and relive the trauma all over again. (Why isn’t the state doing this on their behalf?)
Campaigning for justice involves the powerless taking on the powerful with nothing more than
‘the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play’.
But when ‘truth’ is a matter of interpretation and British fair play is nothing more than a cover for colonialism then, just as Jonathan Aitken discovered, they prove to be sadly lacking. In contrast, those who benefit from maintaining the status quo hold much more valuable weapons such as possession of the most damning evidence which must be prised from their hands and can be redacted beyond use; unlimited funds for legal representation from the public purse; the ability to interpret the rules and regulations in whatever way they see fit; the knowledge that other organisations will follow their lead to provide circular assurance that no wrongdoing has occurred; complex legal processes designed to be in their favour; the silence of the media and lack of opposition from the academics.
We are fighting a faceless establishment (just who is pulling the strings?) and it is so difficult to win because each time they lose they rewrite the rulebook to ensure it doesn’t happen again. But it would be foolish of them to win all the time – that would most certainly give the game away. At the present time, about 65% of people feel there is no point in complaining. Without a few victories for the little guy this figure would be much higher and public confidence would take a significant hit. So, every now and again a campaigner breaks through and is honoured for their ‘brave fight’ and applauded for their ‘determination’ and ‘selflessness’ in the common good. These select few can then be used like trophies to prove that campaigning is a worthy cause. This is no more than accountability theatre and delivers a cruel blow to those still suffering who have just as much fight, just as much determination and just as much right to justice. They are left swimming round in the angry pool of authoritarian control as new fish are added daily by a bureaucratic system which has no intention of delivering justice but knows how important it is to pretend that they do.
#corruptbydesign
PHSOtheFACTS
A public information service
[1] Sara Ryan’s blog ‘mydaftlife’ – a case study in British justice.
[2] Inclosure Acts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts
phsothetruestory 
in one of today’s articles on BBC News called “Vulnerable teen given tent to live in by council”, the ombudsman proudly beat its drums: “In this case, we used our powers to also consider the injustice the children suffered. We found the children would have been harmed by the sudden removal from the home. “. Just by the way the ombudsman writes about ” its powers” would make anyone with no experience of ombudsmen believe that it is pretty powerful, just, and effective. None of them would question in how many cases the ombudsman is useless and a parody of itself.
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Whether powerful or powerless it is all at the Ombudsman’s discretion and therein lies the rub.
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Does the PHSO ever fully uphold a case? I have referred the deaths of my child and my father in law at different trusts and both were part upheld, despite evidence of appalling care and neglect of basic duties. The system appears to use the opinion of one doctor to find one tiny potential loophole so that they can not uphold the whole complaint. In my daughter’s case, their expert decided that she need not have been admitted, despite crystal clear advice in the NICE Clinical Knowledge summary for croup. I have an independent report, commissioned by the Trust, that says that she could and should have been afforded more reliable care and that her death was probably preventable. What more do they need? Perhaps they only employ experts that are prepared to tow the line!
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This sounds familiar. It would be interesting to know which cases are fully upheld. I’m guessing minor issues which receive no more than a slap on the wrist.
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Sums up the trajectory of the complainant. You start off with the wind whistling in your ears as you believe the PHSO is there to help, but you end up feeling like a liar and a cheat as that organisation tells you that black is indeed white and it doesn’t matter if you, and those about you, see black. It is white because they say so and they have the rest of the establishment on their side, including the MET Police and health regulators. You don’t know this at the beginning as you hand over all your evidence in blind faith with a huge sigh of relief because you believe you are now going to be helped and justice will be done. How awful it is when you first realise that your concerns are being covered up, scopes are being changed and the complaint is being framed to suit the perpetrators. All is well, nothing to see here. Then you do get the odd complaint that they let through, just to balance things up a little, and the Ombudsman does indeed use some of these successful individuals to show that they realise they get things wrong, and the individuals are used more than once, so that should tell you how many serious cases get the justice they deserve. My advice to anyone going through the NHS complaint handling system to be pointed in the direction of the PHSO is – don’t do it, it’s fixed, dare I say corrupt, don’t forget the Dispatches channel 4 episode that exposed the financial Ombudsman, if things are corrupt there they sure as heck are corrupt within the PHSO. I don’t want to sue the NHS for my husband’s brain damage, but I do want truth and justice to be the outcome. The fight has affected me on every level, but I suppose, as the Ombudsman has suggested, I must manage my expectations better. However do they sleep at night?
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A good point here about the use of the same few individuals to demonstrate improvement at PHSO. Where are all the other ‘satisfied’ complainants? Why don’t they get interviewed on Radio Ombudsman?
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I don’t think continuing the fight is closure. There is no end point it just goes on.
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No not necessarily. It changes direction as you get smarter and becomes less personal. But it’s different for everyone.
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What do you mean by closure? I love to find some the best I have is quiet resignation. Though sometimes its just expletives.
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For me closure is not letting the injustice steal more of my life.
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That’s defiance.
Closure is an ending/ conclusion. The conclusion is we have lost our personal fights against the system. Like it or not. And I don’t. That’s the extent of my closure.
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We all have to find our own closure. I find one which works for me. It doesn’t mean I have given up the fight.
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As you so rightly say in a totalitarian state you know where you stand. In this country the majority of people think that we will generally have justice. This is still the case, even when they read the papers and see that many people have been denied justice in what is an inherently unfair and biased system. It is only when they themselves have to seek justice that they find out how rotten the system is. They are promised that there is always the good old Ombudsman to see that ‘right is done’ little realising that he is there to give you hope when in reality there is none and to keep you quiet for as long as possible. The most cynical of all his ploys is to say that you have recourse to the Courts. He knows full well that this is prohibitively expensive for ordinary people, that the chances of winning are only marginally above zero, especially when faced with lawyers on the other side (which you have to pay for when you lose), and that by the time it has gone through the PHSO system you are out of time anyway.
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Reality is laid bare in this deeply thoughtful, honest and well written article. Thank you and while it doesn’t change anything at least it gives healing to those of us with open wounds.
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You have to find your own closure as the system will simply fob you off again and again.
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Brilliant and bleak blog post. The illusion and deceit of justice explained. The PHSO’s processes will never deliver justice until they are overhauled and the legislation rewritten, and there is no incentive to do that.
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Wonderful description of what some may judge to be a deliberately misleading facade …cruelly raising expectations of those seeking resolution by parading upheld token cases in front of them. Your oversight is remarkable and based on prolonged scrutiny of the system.
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There is much cruelty in the present complaint system such as those in authority looking you in the eye and telling you how grateful they are for your contribution and that they will give it careful consideration before closing the door and forgetting all about it.
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A superb piece of writing here which speaks volumes of the way ‘justice’ is perceived and the way in which we are drawn in to believing we are protected and safe and that there is accountability for proven wrong doing, failure of duty and maladministration anywhere within government departments or the medical system. The tricks and tactics used are exactly as described here in this blog. It certainly would not be in order to appear to the public and complainants that the powers that be are always coming out on top, dismissing the cases straight off and that no failure whatsoever was found and everything was all nicely above board. No, we are purposely given a little token here and there, often for the most unimportant element of the grievances and complaints, whilst all else goes unanswered and through the shredder. And as it says here there are the national heroes who do manage to make it through the system but at tremendous cost to themselves from years of intense anxiety, frustration and desperation. The ” accountability theatre’ is a perfect term as that is exactly what it is. Absolutely well said in every way.
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The pursuit of Justice Della can you post this on twitter This sums up how I feel The medical worl seem to have lost their minds. sue
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Certainly will. It is a message which will chime with many justice seekers I believe.
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