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Civil Justice Reform
Recommendations Requiring Amendments to
Subsidiary Legislation under the High Court Ordinance
The Steering Committee has identified that, in respect of the High Court, 84 recommendations in the Final Report on CJR require amendments to subsidiary legislation under the High Court Ordinance ("HCO"), including the Rules of the High Court ("RHC") (Cap. 4A) and the High Court Fees Rules ("HCFR") (Cap. 4D).
2.
The 84 recommendations, the Rules they affect, and the relevant Amendment Rules in the Draft HC Amendment Rules at Annex D and HCF(A)R Annex G are tabulated below.
| Item No. | Recommendations | Rules Affected | Amendment Rules | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 1. | Recommendation 2 A rule should be introduced identifying underlying (rather than overriding) objectives of the system of civil justice to assist in the interpretation and application of rules of court, practice directions and procedural jurisprudence and to serve as a statement of the legitimate aims of judicial case management. |
RHC New Order 1A New Order 1B |
Rule 1 | ||||
| 2. | Recommendation 3 The underlying objectives referred to in Recommendation 2 should be stated as (i) increasing cost-effectiveness in the court's procedures; (ii) the expeditious disposal of cases; (iii) promoting a sense of reasonable proportion and procedural economy in respect of how cases are litigated; (iv) promoting greater equality between parties; (v) facilitating settlement; and (vi) distributing the court's resources fairly, always recognizing that the primary aim of judicial case management should be to secure the just resolution of the parties' dispute in accordance with their substantive rights. |
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| 3. | Recommendation 4 Rules should be introduced (along the lines of CPR 1.4) listing available case management measures and conferring (along the lines of CPR 3.1) specific case management powers on the court, including power to act of its own motion, exercisable generally and (unless excluded) in addition to powers provided by specific rules, in the light of the underlying objectives referred to in Recommendation 2. |
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| 4. | Recommendation 81 The parties should be encouraged by rule and practice direction, backed by costs sanctions, to adopt a reasonable and cooperative attitude in relation to all procedural issues. |
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| 5. | Recommendation 82 Where the court considers one or more procedural directions to be necessary or desirable and unlikely to be controversial between the parties, it ought to have power, of its own motion and without hearing the parties, to give the relevant directions by way of an order nisi, with liberty to the parties to apply within a stated period for that order not to be made absolute. |
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