What can you do if the government violates your rights?

For now, you can't take your case to Rhode Island state court, but state Representative David Cicilline (D-Providence) hopes to change that. The criminal-defense lawyer, who is running for mayor of Providence, is pushing legislation to give Rhode Islanders the right to sue when the government is accused of violating rights guaranteed by the state Constitution.

In 1998, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that state law doesn't give citizens the right to sue to protect constitutionally guaranteed rights. In a case concerning the Town of Coventry's failure to notify victims about the sentencing hearing of a drunk driver, the court, in a 4-1 decision written by Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg, declared that it couldn't grant relief without a law specifying a remedy.

In a powerful dissenting opinion, Justice Robert Flanders contended that the Constitution by definition was self-enforcing. Under the majority's reasoning, he wrote, "All our rights to free speech, free association, free assembly, petitioning the government, due process, equal protection, legal counsel, freedom of religion, just compensation, trial by jury, and any other rights in the constitutional pantheon would be unenforceable absent legislative creation of private rights of action or authorization of other remedy for their violation." The majority's decision, Flanders also noted, created a topsy-turvy legal world "where people who trip on municipal sidewalks may sue their government for damages but individuals whose fundamental constitutional rights have been violated by the government are powerless."

Cicilline and the American Civil Liberties Union's Rhode Island chapter agree with Flanders, but say in the meantime that the majority decision is law and must be changed.

The House passed Cicilline's proposal two years in a row, only to watch it die quietly in the Senate. This year, the House Judiciary Committee took no action on the bill before the deadline to vote on legislation. So, using a little known parliamentary maneuver, Cicilline is re-filing it to keep the issue alive.

In the meantime, Rhode Islanders are not completely defenseless. They can sue in federal court to enforce rights guaranteed by the US Constitution, but additional rights listed in the Rhode Island Constitution, such as the right to shoreline access or a crime victim's right to seek compensation from the perpetrator of a crime and to address the court before his/her sentencing, are defenseless. Freedom of speech and religion would also be strengthened by the enactment of his legislation, Cicilline notes, because suing in state court is cheaper.

Issue Date: April 25 - May 2, 2002