I have just two words to say in response to Marc Alexander's proposed amendment to the Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill barring prisoners from gaining any redress of any kind from the courts unless they have first "made reasonable use" of existing complaints procedures:
By barring the courts from granting redress, Alexander would be barring them from granting the most important form of redress of all: freedom to those detained illegally. Is that really what he intends?
Here's another three words: Arthur Allan Thomas. As written, Alexander's amendment would prevent any claim for false imprisonment by those wrongly convicted of crime (by police malfeasance or otherwise) from being pursued through the courts. While the payment process allows those who are later found innocent to reclaim any money awarded and transferred to victims (either from the government or from "their" victims), there's no such out in the restriction on access to the courts for wrongdoing by the crown.
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