Civil Justice System Flashcards
Lecture 7
What is the Civil Justice System concerned with?
Sorting out disputes between individuals or organisations. Its scope is massive, covering a wide range of issues relating to legal obligations and entitlements.
What does Lord Bingham say regarding the Rule of Law?
“all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly and prospectively promulgated and publicly administered by the courts.”
What is Civil Litigation and its main purpose?
For resolving legal and equitable disputes through the Civil Courts when the dispute cannot be resolved by agreement between parties
There were major changes in the CJS over the last 35 years. How can you relate the Civil Justice Review 1988 to this?
It was recognised that the High Court became more expensive and slower than the County Court. Recommended that small cases should not be heard in the HC, but County Court (led to reforms in Courts and Legal Services Act 1990)
List some of the problems with the civil justice system before April 1999.
- Too expensive
- Delay
- Adversarial process
- Emphasis on oral evidence
- Enforcement
What happened to the CJS after April 1999 (link to Lord Woolf’s main recommendations)
- Civil Procedure Rules 1998 and accompanying Practice Directions came into force
- Woolf’s aims to reduce: cost, delay, and complexity (by 75%)
What else did Woolf say a civil justice should do?
- Be just in results delivered
- Fair in way it treats litigants
- Offer appropriate procedures at reasonable cost
- Deal with cases with reasonable speed
- Understandable to those who use it
- Responsive to needs of those who use it
- Provide certainty as nature of particular cases allow
- Be effective, adequately resourced & organised
List the main elements of Woolf reforms.
- Change in litigation culture
- Civil Procedure Rules
- Pre-action protocols
- Alternative Dispute Resolution
- Case management
- Sanctions
What are the small and fast tracks?
- Small: simple, informal process for claims up to £10,000 often handled without legal representation
- Fast: structured process between £10,000 and £25,000 with controlled costs and trials lasting no more than one day
What are the intermediate and multi-tracks?
- Intermediate: introduced in 2023 for claims between £25,000 and £100,000 with a structured approach and fixed recoverable costs
- Multi-track: flexible process for complex or high-value cases over £100,000 involving detailed case management and legal representation
What were the overall impacts of Woolf’s reforms?
- Generally well-received
- Drop in litigation
- 11% drop in county court, 37% drop in high court
Woolf reforms might not have reduced costs. Why may this be the case?
- Pre-action protocols and case management requirements lead to additional costs
- Problems with satellite litigation or “Cost Wars”
Why does Zander believe Woolf’s reforms are fundamentally flawed?
- No evidence that the adversarial nature of the civil justice system = primary cause of delays
- Notes Lord Chancellor’s Department research (1994)
- Believes Woolf wrong to place case management in the hands of judges
Describe what Lord Justice Jackson thought for tackling costs (after Woolf).
Problems: Costs increased due to front-loading Satellite litigation on costs
Jackson noted in his Review of Civil Litigation Costs (2010): “there are serious problems of non-compliance with pre-action protocols”. Also that the courts were “too tolerant of delays and non-compliance with orders”
What were Lord Justice Jackson’s reforms?
- Reduction in conditional fee agreements – boosting contingency fee agreements (DBAs)
- Greater use of fixed costs (now apply to Fast Track & Intermediate Track claims) & establishment of a Costs Council to review these costs/lawyers’ hourly rates
- Scrapping of referral fees
- CPR overriding objective amended – “justly and at proportionate cost”
- Proportionality test introduced for quantifying costs. Costs should reflect the complexity of the case
What are some of the key features of Whiplash claims?
- Fixed compensation amounts
- Claims will not be settled without medical assessment
- Claims are brought on the Official Injury Claim portal
- More low value RTA PI claims are allocated to the small claims track, which is the “no costs” track
- Non-RTA PI claims go to the fast track if damages for PSLA exceed £1,500, or if total damages between £10,000 & £25,000
- RTA PI claims go to fast track if damages for PSLA exceed £5,000, or if total damages between £10,000 & £25,000
