Legal Systems: Rule of Law

Lord Taverne Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, speak on this topic in this august legal gathering with hesitation and misgiving. I last practised law in 1966 and had only 12 years at the Bar and one year as a Silk, practising mainly before that friendly god the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I was then lucky enough to become a Minister at the Home Office in that glorious period between 1966 and 1967 when Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary, which was the greatest period of law reform since the Second World War. Since then, however, I have not been directly concerned with the law. It has changed profoundly, and whatever law I once knew I have forgotten—hence my hesitation, especially since I shall voice some critical comments.

I believe that recent discussions about our legal system have missed one very important point. The Government rightly argue that the cost of legal aid has soared and must be controlled. Lawyers and others concerned with justice rightly complain that cuts in legal aid have restricted access to justice—a fundamental right in a democracy—but no one blames the legal system. I fear that we can no longer claim that the legal system in England and Wales is a model for the rest of the world, in at least one very important respect. I shall restrict my comments to civil litigation, but I believe equally valid criticisms can be made of proceedings in criminal cases.

The costs of litigation are not only exceptionally high by international comparisons, but unpredictable and can end up being out of all proportion as a subject matter in dispute, causing financial ruin to the parties. Valiant attempts to limit and reduce costs, such as the reforms proposed in 1999 by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the proposal of Lord Justice Jackson, implemented in 2013, have not prevented the seemingly inexorable rise in costs. At the same time, according to the Government’s own figures, when the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act became effective in April 2013, legal aid was no longer available to some 600,000 of the million or so who previously qualified.

Our legal system has become dysfunctional. Why? I will mention some plausible explanations. Losers have to pay winners’ costs, so costs are ratcheted up. Once you start to litigate, you have to go on to the bitter end, because abandoning your case half way means you are the loser. Lawyers, who charge by the hour, have no compelling incentive to limit costs. Even when they want or try to, they have to react to opponents’ moves.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, who I have always greatly admired, put forward reforms that offered hope by giving judges control over litigation to see that it was conducted efficiently and economically. So why have costs risen even higher? I am told that a major reason is that there is now much more litigation about costs themselves, which can be very large. Lord Justice Jackson was asked to review the rules and principles governing those costs, and judges now have discretion over their awards in the light of the conduct of the parties. However, this leads only to more jockeying and argument about costs, adding to their total. The sad fact is that the amount of litigation about costs has no parallel in any other country.

Once the issues have been defined, the parties’ lawyers must provide the court with estimates of the cost of running the entire case, which the court must review and approve to make sure costs are not disproportionate. Budgets are approved at the first case management conference after the close of pleadings, but this means that would-be litigants have to retain lawyers to start proceedings and work out budgets. They have to commit themselves to proceedings that may be very expensive, without any idea of what they will eventually cost. Who wants to go to law if their means are limited?

No wonder there has been a vast rise in the number of litigants in person—but litigation demands legal knowledge and expertise in court procedure. Those who argue their own case without either are almost bound to be less likely to obtain justice. Inevitably, cases argued in person also take much longer and add to the costs of administration.

What should be done? First, I have always had doubts that the public are best served by lawyers being paid on the taxi-meter principle: by the hour. More importantly, there should be a major review of the administration of civil justice. It is perhaps the oldest public service. Access to justice at reasonable cost is a vital principle, and the fact that it is no longer available undermines our claims to be a civilised society. Yet this public service has never been independently reviewed. Of course lawyers must play a major part in any review, but they should not themselves be the final arbiters of how the public can best be served. There is something seriously wrong with a system in which, to litigate, you have to be a plutocrat or a pauper.