Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

When the first major step was taken in the creation of what we would today recognise as a modern administrative justice system – the passing of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1958 – the Government of the day decided to create a statutory body – the Council on Tribunals – to keep the work of tribunals under review.

It was a body whose influence waxed and waned over subsequent years, but its reports were influential, particularly in promoting the need for training of tribunal personnel, ensuring that procedures would enable unrepresented parties to have the chance to be heard.

The Leggatt Review of Tribunals (of which I was a member) started with the view that the time had come to abolish the Council – but during discussion, it changed its mind, not least because of the powerful advocacy of its then Chair, the late Lord Tony Newton. Leggatt ended up recommending retention of the body that came to be known as the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council (AJTC).

In the so-called bonfire of the quangos launched by the Cameron-Clegg Coalition Government in 2010, the AJTC was once again back in the firing line. The truth is that civil servants had long wanted to get rid of a body which they felt added to their administrative burdens without offering much in return.

Notwithstanding the fact that in its final years, the AJTC did extremely valuable work looking at some of the principles and broad strategic issues affecting the administrative justice system, the axe finally fell on the AJTC in 2013.

This was not however the end of the story. An Administrative Justice Advisory Group was created in 2012. In 2013 it became the Administrative Justice Forum (AJF). It was given a specific remit to keep under review the strategic programme of work being undertaken with regard to the administrative justice system – in particular tribunals – work now being taken forward under the Transforming Our Justice System programme.

In March 2017, the Government published the final report of the AJF, summarising some of the issues on which the Ministry of Justice had been working since 2013. Although the work is still ongoing, the AJF has been shut down.

Interestingly, its functions have not entirely disappeared. Arrangements are being put in place (the full details are not yet finalised) for JUSTICE, the Human Rights Group that has been engaged in a major programme of work relating to aspects of the development of the justice system, to host a new advisory group which will continue to have input to the Ministry of Justice.

The key topics on which the AJF reported were, in fact, issues which the former AJTC had done much to promote – for example,

• the importance of ensuring that practice and procedure take users of tribunals fully into account;
• the importance of Government departments learning from the outcomes of tribunal decisions, particularly where the may indicate operational practices that may need changing;
• the importance of enduring that there was no excessive delay in arranging and delivering decisions.

What the AJF did not do was consider broader questions about how different parts of the administrative justice system – tribunals, ombudsmen, complaints procedures – might interact more efficiently.

From my perspective what the latest development shows is that trying to keep a clear overview of the whole of the administrative justice landscape is a daunting prospect, particularly at a time when the bulk of civil service resources have to be devoted to the modernisation programme currently under way. This overview has to come from outside government, led by those who can take a holistic view and who are not locked into any specific aspect of the system.

For the final report of the Administrative Justice Forum see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/administrative-justice-and-tribunals-final-progress-report