Trauma-sensitive, survivor-centric strategic litigation against discrimination

Strategic litigators seek to address structural inequality, impacting systems beyond the individual case. Their beyond-the-client goals risk decentring survivors. However, survivors are entitled to be centred as this is a response required by their trauma. Decentring survivors is revictimising them. It triggers the powerlessness inherent in the traumatic experience of being wronged. Decentring trauma survivors is wronging them, denying their dignity, derailing their recovery. Litigators are there to represent clients, not use them, and should consistently safeguard them against objectification. As a matter of integrity, strategic litigators need to ensure their practice is trauma-informed in order not to revictimise right-holders.