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Civil Justice System General

The civil justice system faces significant challenges, particularly for first-time litigants who lack the resources to effectively navigate its complexities, as illustrated by the McLibel case. Despite reforms such as the CPR 1998 and encouragement of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), issues of accessibility, cost, and procedural complexity persist, often disadvantaging laypersons against well-resourced corporations. A comprehensive overhaul of the civil justice system is deemed necessary to ensure it serves its intended purpose and promotes equitable access to justice.

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Sebastian Lee
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4 views

Civil Justice System General

The civil justice system faces significant challenges, particularly for first-time litigants who lack the resources to effectively navigate its complexities, as illustrated by the McLibel case. Despite reforms such as the CPR 1998 and encouragement of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), issues of accessibility, cost, and procedural complexity persist, often disadvantaging laypersons against well-resourced corporations. A comprehensive overhaul of the civil justice system is deemed necessary to ensure it serves its intended purpose and promotes equitable access to justice.

Uploaded by

Sebastian Lee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Civil justice system – essay

 Cite: Prof H Genn, Prof Robert Jago


 E.g. Mc Libel (Steel & Moriss v Mac Donalds) – illustrates the problem within the civil
system, the reality of civil justice system is that at times parties may involve a
beginner/first timer like Steel & Morris, on the other hand we will have the repeat
players such as big corporation, (McDonalds) in this case, sometimes even big
insurance company. This shows that first timer may not have the sufficient financial
capacity to represent them, so they ended represent themselves. Hence, they have
to navigate the complex system of the civil justice system, Steel & Moriss being a
litigant in person may not have the knowledge. The heavy adversarial system itself
inherent problem within the justice system with technical & complex nature of the
procedure, this may lead to unequal bargaining power as seen in Mc Libel.
 The adversarial trial / trial by battle, involves lawyers shape the journey of the
litigation and judges is characterises as a passive umpire. Litigants may want to get
their ‘day in court’ which makes the process slow
 Charles Dickens in his novel ‘Bleak House’ illustrated the problem of civil justice
system being extremely slow. In the novel it portrays how the court of chancery took
decades to resolve the issue, he emphasised that the only winning party in the end
of the day are the lawyers and courts

 Tie it back to the question: it does reflect that the system does not fit it purpose, and
the system is in need of reforms

 Assess the effectiveness of lord woolf report.


 …court the last resort
 CPR 1998 – introduced unified version of procedures for all civil courts to make the
system more user friendly, will in turn make the system accessible?

 Mindset of insiders
 Give comment on case management idea
 Controlled adversarial process
 Rule 1.4(1) CRP 1998 makes judges actively managing cases in the pre trial process
such as set the timescale, allocate the case to appropriate track, this gives more
control on the judges to manage the case before trial
 It being more controlled where judges can set timescale promotes certainty in law.
 Evidence of higher rates of settlement – encourage ADR, in Dunnett v Railtrack the
court of appeal held that if one party unreasonably refuse to go for ADR, the court
can impose sanction. This is indirectly compelling party to ADR
 The Dunnett effect after the case resulted in more people going for ADR as opposed
to pre Dunnett
 Prof H Genn argues that the encouragement of ADR seems to be a form of
compromise justice. It pushing people to a second-class justice
 Peter Thompson (2009) argues that the length of CRP had increase, it further
complicates the procedure. For example, there are many procedures such as practice
directions, pre-action guidance etc. this is contrary to the initial notion to simplify
the civil justice process. The issue of complexity is still there.
 Furthermore, with the introduction of LASPO 2012 where it reduces the legal aid
drastically, leading to the increase of litigants in person i.e. laymen represent
themselves in court. Eventually, there will be a gap in bargaining power. This means
that the LIPs will not be able to fight their case effectively considering the complex
procedure whilst going against experienced corporations.

 Pre-trial process where it involves co-operation requires parties with disclosure of


information, parties can sometime misuses disclosure stage by disclosing a huge
amount of files or information as a delay tactic
 The problem continues as seen in Jackson report: where the lawyers of the winning
parties overcharging the recoverable fee.
 Before lord wolf vs post lord woolf, the litigation cost definitely increase
comparatively. The issues of cost still not being properly dealt with

 Summarise Lord Briggs’s review, and mention the recommendation provided by him.
 Will the online court accord the civil justice system its purpose? For less complex
matters, online court may be effective. However, more complex issues may not be
suitable for online court.
 Civil justice is failing, and does not serve its purpose
 Significant reform is imperative. We must envision and implement a thorough
overhaul of the civil justice system.

 Exceptional cases funding, when human rights are affected. The reality is that LASPO
affected the rule of law.
 Where we can witness the occurrence of legal aid deserts following the closure of
legal aid centre
 But people may still want to fight their rights which lead to increase of litigants in
persons. Does this promote access to justice? No, because the complex procedure
and issue at hand may be challenging for the laymen
 Further, in LIPs cases judges becomes more inquisitorial especially in family law
courts whereby judges are more active during the trial to give directions to LIPs. This
resulted in cases progress more slowly and lead to backlog of cases.
 This also led to the emergence of McKenzie friends, wherein unqualified individuals
provide assistance to Litigants in Person (LIPs) by conducting research and offering
indirect support. There is no regulating body that govern McKenzie friends and this
will compromise quality of justice.

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