Page 17 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

counsel would empower people to be human beings again and stop being abused the way they are . And also, the right to counsel will stop big money from doing gentrification and creating homelessness in the city and the right to counsel will save the city a lot of money by addressing all of these issues because you have shelters, you have all kinds of other mental issues that can go on with people not being able to live in a home . So the right to counsel means peace of mind and well-being and living in dignity as a human being and that’s why we need it .18
What does it mean for people to have a right?
Making something a “right” is transformative in a number of respects . It transforms government behavior by protecting against error and unfairness . It fosters the right-holder’s sense of security and well-being . It grants the right-holder greater dignity and respect . It conveys greater equality . And it transfers greater power to the right-holder .
A right provides protection against government error and unfairness
I saw where even when tenants were right they still had a very good chance of being evicted or might have been evicted for [not] paying a debt that they already paid because they did not know how to present their defenses properly . They did not know their rights, so were not able to win very winnable cases that would’ve been easily won if they had an attorney .19
Rights are generally seen as providing protection against government error and unfairness . Rights cause government to act in a manner that is more deliberative, less arbitrary, more thoughtful; and in so doing, rights foster the rule of law . Due to their common nature, rights affect others around them as well as government actors . As one scholar put it, “[b]y definition, the creation of a right alters not only the status of one individual but also the status of the government and all individuals that the right holder comes into contact with .”20
This alteration of status would certainly be true with the introduction of a right to counsel in eviction proceedings in New York City’s Housing Court . In Housing Court, there are a number of regular players who interact on a daily basis in a relatively closed environment – Judges, court officers, housing agency and other city and state government representatives, landlords, landlord’s lawyers (who represent most of the landlords who appear in court), unrepresented tenants and tenantlawyers(whorepresentafractionofthetenantswhoappearincourt) . Thatenvironment is not only closed, it is relatively static, with patterns of behavior and mutual understandings that have evolved over many years . The ecology of that environment will be greatly disrupted with the introduction of a right to counsel and the resultant changed expectations and understandings and cadre of tenant lawyers who will be there to implement the right .
18 Joseph Cepeda, CASA focus group, Nov. 17, 2015.
19 Fitzroy Christian, CASA focus group, Nov. 17, 2015.
20 David McKennett, Who Can Create Your Rights? On Save Our Valley v. Sound Transit, the Inability of Agencies to Create Personal Rights, and the Implications on the Non-Delegation Doctrine, 15 geo. mason u. c.r. l.J. 179, 209 (2004). See also holiday hunt Russell, The Search For a Section 1983 Right Under the Dormant Commerce Clause, 15 noVa l. reV. 263 (1991) (“Rights are all things which inure to the person upon which that person can claim to be free of governmental action”).
Specific Areas for Reform: Housing
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