B. PRESSURES FELT BY MANY CIVIL JUSTICE SYSTEMS

B1. Historically

9.	Historically, civil justice systems have from time to time been subjected to criticism for failing to meet current needs. This is hardly surprising since such needs inevitably change with social and economic conditions. With society's modernisation and technological advances, there has been a sharp increase in the number, rapidity and complexity of transactions matched by increases in the scope and complexity of legislation and case-law, testing the ability of the civil justice system to cope with the resultant body of legal proceedings.
10	When subjected to such pressures, legal systems have often been criticised for being too slow, too expensive and too complex or cumbersome when dealing with civil disputes. This has led periodically to the commissioning of reports looking into possible reforms.
11.	Lord Woolf points out that since 1851 :-

		"...... there have been some 60 reports on aspects of civil procedure and the organisation of the civil and criminal courts in England and Wales." (Note 3)

12.	Of these, as Professor Michael Zander QC points out, there have been :-

		"...... no fewer than five since the Second World War - the Evershed Report in 1953, the Report of the Winn Committee in 1968, the Cantley Working Party in 1979, the Civil Justice Review in the late 1980s and then Woolf." (Note 4)

13.	Some twenty-five years ago, a Justice Report, speaking of the English system of civil procedure, stated :-

		"It is too slow, too expensive, too cumbersome and too formalistic. The roots of these defects do not lie in a lack of simplicity, but in the underlying principles and practices upon which the system itself, and the preconceptions of those who administer it (judges, masters, barristers and solicitors) are based." (Note 5)

14	These criticisms struck a sympathetic chord with Australian commentators who explored similar problems in a series of articles published in 1975. (Note 6)

 

Notes

3	WIR, p 4, §2. Please see Abbreviations.  <back>
4	Michael Zander QC, "The State of Justice - The Hamlyn Lectures, 1999" (Sweet & Maxwell, London 2000), p 27.  <back>
5	"Going to Law - A Critique of English Civil Procedure" - Report of Committee chaired by Sir John Foster (Stevens & Sons, 1974), §75.  <back>
6	Mr Justice R A Blackburn, "Updating Civil Court Procedures for the 1980s" (1975) 49 ALJ 374; J Daryl Davies QC, "Updating Civil Court Procedures for the 1980s" (1975) 49 ALJ 380; Sir Richard Eggleston, "What is Wrong with the Adversary System" (1975) 49 ALJ 428; P D Connolly QC, "The Adversary System - Is It Any Longer Appropriate " (1975) 49 ALJ 439. <back>