PUBLIC INTEREST INITIATIVE
STATE MUST PROTECT
Our Mission
- Protect individuals from the misuse of public power.
- Expose systemic administrative failures.
- Promote independent investigation and institutional accountability.
- Advance meaningful remedies for people harmed by public institutions.
- Prevent repeated injustice through legal reform.
The Problems
- Protect Institutional Power: Public authorities can profoundly affect people's lives.
- Information Asymmetry: Institutions control the records individuals need to challenge them.
- Fragmented Accountability: Responsibility disappears between departments, regulators and complaints systems.
- Administrative Injury: Serious harm may occur without an effective route to investigation or redress.
- Systemic Failure: Individual complaints may reveal defects capable of harming many others.
What We Do
- Research & Investigation
- Examine documented administrative failures, including lessons from the Horizon scandal.
- Identify institutional patterns and systemic risks.
- Apply legal analysis and AI-assisted documentary investigation.
- Law Reform
- Develop the proposed framework of Administrative Injury Law.
- Analyse legislation and government accountability mechanisms.
- Advocate for independent investigation, correction and effective redress.
- Pro Bono
- Consider selected cases involving serious administrative injustice.
- Prioritise documented cases with potential wider public-interest significance.
- Provide assistance where appropriate professional arrangements and capacity permit.
Our Intellectual Foundation
- Victim of Peace — understanding the human consequences of institutional harm.
- Administrative Injury Law — a proposed framework for investigation, recognition, restoration and compensation.
- Sentinel Administrative Injury — identifying systemic risks through individual cases.
- Compulsory Problematisation — requiring institutions to examine whether their own systems are the source of an apparent problem.
Get Involved
- Request a Pro Bono Case Review
- Collaborate With Us — lawyers, academics, researchers and policymakers.
- Support Our Work — register interest in supporting future research and public-interest projects.
Pro bono assistance is subject to eligibility, capacity, conflicts checks and applicable professional arrangements. State Must Protect is an emerging initiative, not currently a registered charity or a separate provider of legal services.
