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Allegations of Abuse
in Institutions |
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Jonathan Coleman: The National
Party's associate health spokesman got no answer from Deputy PM Michael
Cullen to his question about who ordered payments for 85 claimants to be
slashed The Lake Alice mental patient
institution may be long closed but important questions remain. The government accepted the
findings of a former High Court judge in June that recounted in chilling
detail the institutional mistreatment suffered by over 400 former psychiatric
patients at Lake Alice and other facilities last century. The government had previously
approved over $12 million compensation for two earlier groups of former Lake
Alice patients. But why did bureaucrats operating
in "Kafkaesque" secrecy deprive dozens of those earlier claimants
of up to a third of their settlements, which had been decided by Sir Rodney
Gallen? Why has the Crown, having lost one
court case and given up on its proposed appeal, not taken its lumps and paid
this money - or even acknowledged that it owes it? And how can the Ministry of Health
think that covertly withholding payments to vulnerable members of society is
something to do with "equity?" The answers are unclear but the
trail leads all the way to the full table at the cabinet. The compensation story started
well enough: in 2001 Christchurch lawyer Grant Cameron convinced the then-new
Labour-led government to settle a class action law suit on behalf of 95
former Lake Alice patients. The government provided $6.5
million and appointed Sir Rodney to apportion the compensation between
claimants from that lump sum. The government then set aside the
same proportionate amount to settle with a further 86 claimants on the same
terms. Sir Rodney was again the arbiter for the settlements, but the Crown
offered to pay for the services of Labour Party favourite David Collins QC to
represent the claimants' interests. About a third of the claimants
opted to retain the services of Mr Cameron. They received payouts on equal
terms with the original "first round" claimants. But one of the recipients
represented by Mr Collins - whom then-Attorney-General Michael Cullen
subsequently appointed solicitor-general - contacted Mr Cameron when his
payment fell $35,000 short of the amount of compensation he had initially
been told he would receive. Correspondence to Paul Zentfeld
indicated he was in line for $115,000. But when the cheque arrived in the
mail, the amount had fallen to $80,000, and Mr Zentfeld could not get a
satisfactory explanation for the reduction. He was initially told the original
figure was an error. In court, health officials admitted they had reduced the
amount to keep it in line with the earlier payments - or rather, what they
estimated the first round claimants would have kept after paying Mr Cameron's
costs. In November, National Party
associate health spokesman Jonathan Coleman asked Dr Cullen who approved the
decision to reduce Mr Zentveld's payment by $35,000 and whether the same
person ordered similar amounts to be withheld from the other 85 second-round
claimants. Dr Cullen replied that, to the
best of his recollection, it was "a collective decision" taken by
the cabinet as a whole. But he did not address the matter of the other
claimants, and so whether they were subject to the same level of deductions
remains a mystery. In the District Court at
Wellington in September last year, Judge Tom Broadmore issued a strong rebuke
of the Crown's position and ordered the Crown to pay Mr Zentfield the missing
money. He called the Crown's justification for withholding the part payment
"Kafkaesque." The Crown said the payment had
been scaled back to keep it in line with the amount that first round
claimants would have ended up with after they paid Mr Cameron, in the
interests of "equity." The Crown originally said it would
appeal, but withdrew its application to appeal about a month later - leading
to another awarding of costs against the Crown. Although District Court decisions
are not binding, this result suggests that other individuals with the same
type of claim as Mr Zentfeld would be likely to succeed against the Crown. Mr Cameron said he had not yet
been paid the costs award. He worked on a contingency basis
and pocketed about a third of the original settlement. He said the Ministry of Health
became fixated on the amount of costs he received for representing his
clients in the first round. But he said he took advice from two Queen's
counsel before billing his clients in the first round of claimants. Although two clients asked the
Canterbury District Law Society to review his charging, the bills were not
found to be unreasonable. |
