Seventy-five weeks. That is how long many claimants should now expect to wait before their claim reaches trial – four months longer than before the pandemic.
The latest statistics released by the Ministry of Justice (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2022/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2022) reveal a sorry story of delay in our civil courts. The mean time for small claims to go to trial is now almost a year, at 51.2 weeks; while for multi-track and fast track claims, it is a shocking 75.5 weeks.
Meanwhile I often hear lawyers’ frustrations over chaos and disorganisation in their local county courts – telephones that ring into the void and are never answered; hearings that have to be adjourned at the last minute because the case bundle somehow never made it as far as the judge; and woefully inadequate technology that makes everyone’s lives more difficult.
Yet while all this sounds like bargain basement justice, the irony is that it is not remotely cheap – claimants pay a premium price for this dismal level of service. A professor of land law recently tweeted that his students were astonished to learn that a case worth £200,000 now carries a court fee of some £10,000. ‘And we wonder why there are no trusts or estoppel cases about a two-bed bungalow in Bromsgrove’, he commented. Quite so.
Justice is already financially out of reach for many people, particularly for smaller cases. Sometimes litigation funders can help – especially where smaller claims can be grouped together in a class action or a portfolio of similar claims. But the fact remains that a huge number of meritorious claims are never brought before the courts, because the cost of doing so is too high. These appalling delays within the court system only serve to make that problem even worse.
A functioning society rests on having a justice system that is accessible, that is fair, and that works properly – which also means within a reasonable timeframe. When people or companies do not pay their debts, or do not fulfil their legal obligations, they need to know that they can be held to account.
In these straitened economic times, there are many competing priorities for government funding. But the urgent need for proper investment in our court system cannot be allowed to fall by the wayside.
December 12, 2022
Insights
