Bach Commission: The Right to Justice

Lord Woolf Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolf (CB)]

My Lords, I also commend the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for the excellent report that has been produced and is the subject matter of this debate, and for securing the debate. There is so much that is worth while in the report that in the time available it is possible to focus only on one issue. I will focus on the suggestion that there should be established a justice commission; a matter already mentioned in the course of his powerful speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips.

It will be known to certain of the lawyers here that in the course of my legal career I was responsible for producing a report on this subject, in the long and distant past of 20 years ago. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who was in his place, was the Minister responsible for asking me to make that report. If you are going to make a report, you are usually very dependent on the Minister who commissions you to do so. I could not have been more fortunate than to have the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, as my source of authority. I welcome the opportunity to say that he not only supported me during the course of the inquiry but supported me magnificently in helping get some of my reforms implemented.

But the civil justice system in this jurisdiction does not stand still; it continuously evolves. It does so because it is basically a common law system, one of the virtues of which is that it continuously evolves. Whatever the virtues of a civil justice system, it does not have that benefit.

Whatever the report says, it will need to be continuously reviewed to bring it up to date. That is why a justice commission is so important. One consequence of LASPO was attempts by the Government to alleviate its worst effects. However, they did not work as well as the Government thought they would. As a result, the Government were in the unfortunate position of putting aside money to help with special cases but, lo and behold, that money did not get to the special cases that needed it. I remember hearing debates in this House where that fact was deplored, and the Government went on to try to find better ways of doing it. No matter how many reports you have, better ways of doing things will be found, and we must focus on this.

Mention has been made of the quality of our legal system, which has rightly been commended. But, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, indicated, it is an expensive system. One of things I achieved—but failed to do—was to ensure that in big cases, where all the people involved were wealthy, they should be able to use all the Rolls-Royce assistance the system could apply; but if you had the misfortune to be a small person in a small case, you should be able to use a bicycle to achieve what was needed in the justice system. I still believe we provide the Rolls-Royce in our system but we do not provide the bicycle—and that is one of the issues upon which we should focus. I urge that we find ways of making that happen—and I can think of no better way of doing so than by establishing the commission the report recommends.

I have had the good fortune of being gainfully employed abroad since I retired as a judge in this jurisdiction. I received that benefit because of the reputation of our system. However, I have always been rather nervous that it might be pointed out to me that our judges may be very good but, unfortunately, the system is far too expensive.