Next month, litigants will be charged up to £1,000 a day in hearing fees for multi-track cases. Is this the beginning of a system of court fees that will make England the only large Western nation to charge trial fees? Dominic Carman speaks to the silks and solicitors leading the debate
During a BBC Newsnight interview in 2002, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, then Master of the Rolls, told Jeremy Paxman: “The civil justice system is creaking at the seams because of a lack of resources. The Treasury has introduced – without any parliamentary debate or discussion – a complete change. Yes, it is the job of the state to provide a health service and to provide education. It is not the job of the state to provide a civil justice system. The litigant has to pay in court fees for the cost of maintaining these buildings and for the judges. I do not know any other country where this full cost recovery is imposed. It has dire consequences for an effective civil justice system.”
