RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CITIZENS, and private relationships between citizens and the state and other bodies, are the province of private law, in which individuals mount actions about private interests. The main category of private law of relevance to the human services is civil law, which includes family law, torts (ie the law of wrongful and actionable conduct), and contract law. The same set of facts may found both a public and private law action, but the law applied in each area, the legal procedure, the standard of proof and the possible outcomes will be different (see, for differences and overlaps in more detail Trindade et al. 2007 pp. 6–8). In civil law actions, the standard to be satisfied by the plaintiff is ‘on the balance of probabilities’. Claims are generally heard in civil courts and occasionally special civil tribunals. Most commonly, successful claims result in compensation in the form of monetary damages, rather than some form of required action, as in public law.

Much of the small amount of civil legal activity about alleged wrongdoing in the human services is conducted in private negotiations – very few cases get to court. Anyone wanting to know about outcomes of private settlements will need to rely on media and advocacy group reports for information. Although these private processes may be preferable for the plaintiff, they do not, as Mann (2003) points out, ensure proper transparency about wrongdoing and its consequences.