Conclusion
The central aim of providing access to justice should be to ensure that every citizen receives implementation of his legal rights at the lowest overall cost, not just the cost to litigants, or the courts' budget, or insurers, but to society as a whole. How far the proposals in the Report will achieve that will have to be seen when they are implemented, whether in whole or in part. Although the proposals are radical in many ways, it is certainly possible to argue that on one construction they merely preserve the present distinction between small claims, County Court, and High Court cases, with a variety of significant modifications. If that be so, it is equally arguable that very much the same result could be achieved by modifications to both the County Court and High Court rules without the need for universal sweeping changes.
Certainly all practitioners and judiciary are going to find that the next few years are full of challenge and interest. It will be fascinating to observe the changes and the outcome.
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References
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Additional information
Q.C., M.A., LL.M. (Cantab), J.D. (Chicago), one of Her Majesty's Circuit Judges since 1987. The opinions expressed in this article are purely personal to the author and should not be attributed to any other member of the judiciary.
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Evans, D.M. Access to justice. Liverpool Law Rev 19, 37–45 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02810630
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02810630