A remedy that arrives too late is not a remedy, so institutional delay is a substantive harm and not merely an inconvenience.
Attributed to Gladstone and echoing Magna Carta's clause 40. The substantive point is that delay is not a procedural inconvenience: a remedy arriving after the business has failed is not a remedy.
In practice
- A tribunal that awards compensation four years after the dismissal has given a remedy to someone who has already moved house and career.
- A planning appeal decided after the applicant's funding has lapsed is a decision about a project that no longer exists.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Rules that restrain power, and advice on using it