It would be misleading to suggest that the office of the Attorney General's Statement of Strategy, 1997, seeks to limit the public interest role of the Attorney General or his office. Section 6 of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, vests, inter alia, in the Attorney General “the administration and business generally of public services in connection with the representation ... of the public in all legal proceedings for the enforcement of law, the punishment of offenders and the assertion or protection of public rights and all powers, duties and functions connected with the same respectively,”. This important function is fully acknowledged in the office of the Attorney General's Statement of Strategy.
Nonetheless, although important, this public interest role is, in a democracy, of necessity a limited one. In a democracy, the primary guarantor of the rights of the citizen must be the legislature, which acts with a mandate from the people. The role of the courts, and of the Attorney General in seeking to enforce public rights, is to supplement rather than to supplant the democratic system; the State should be governed by the rule of law rather than the rule of lawyers. The courts are entitled to intervene where laws, although democratically enacted, are oppressive of the rights of any citizen, but in a democracy this is a power which should be used sparingly.