Although the Woolf reforms are now four years old in their jurisdiction of origin, they have no application in Guernsey at all. So, just when Lord Woolf might have thought that the last cheap joke title had seen the light of day, we are likely to be penning them here in the Bailiwick for some considerable time to come, although I do not intend to sink so low as to adopt the memorable ‘Woolf bites’ title of a certain Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) update column.
Guernsey, a British island some 80 miles to the south of England, is in short the land that procedural law forgot – an ancient jurisdiction which next year celebrates the 800th anniversary of the historical events leading to its jurisdictional autonomy, King John’s loss of mainland Normandy to the French in 1204.
