Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

One of the central recommendations of Lord Justice Jackson’s 2010 Review of civil litigation procedures and costs was greater use of fixed recoverable fees. The principle of fixed costs had been advanced by the Civil Justice Council for a number of years; indeed they helped to negotiate an agreement that this was the way forward for certain low vale Road Accident claims. Jackson wanted to go further and apply the principle of fixed costs to a wider range of types of case and to cases of higher value. He has continued to advocate the need for many more cases to come within the fixed costs regime – in his view, cases up to £250,000.

Now the senior judiciary (The Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls) have commissioned Lord Justice Jackson to undertake a further exercise to test the practicability and wisdom of his ideas. His review has been given the following terms of reference:

• To develop proposals for extending the present civil fixed recoverable costs regime in England and Wales so as to make the costs of going to court more certain, transparent and proportionate for litigants.
• To consider the types and areas of litigation in which such costs should be extended, and the value of claims to which such a regime should apply.
• To report to the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls by the 31^st July 2017

It seems highly likely that this exercise will lead to an extension of the existing fixed costs regime.

For details of the announcement see https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/announcements/senior-judiciary-announces-review-of-fixed-recoverable-costs/