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 leaking 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.”
Paxman is still with us; likewise Lord Phillips, now Lord Chief Justice. So too, of course, is the civil justice system. Meanwhile, the cost of running the civil and family courts in England and Wales for the last financial year was £550m. Of this, almost 80% was funded through court fees. Isolate the figures and you will find that from a net fee income of £335.9m, the civil courts made a 13.5% profit – £45.5m. Not bad – a Treasury accountant might argue – for a leaky system.
