In the latest attempted affront to the will of the people, a bunch of unelected judges are trying to stop decent honest motorists from getting the £40 insurers have promised them if they stop making claims.
Some bunch styling themselves the Civil Executive Team (CET) led by some chancer styling himeslf Lord Justice Briggs, Deputy Head of Civil Justice have started bleating on about how increasing the gauge of the track on which small claims run from 1k to 5k will result in an explosion of Litigants In Person or LIPS.
In a response to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on the abolition of personal injury claims, this cabal of so-called judges claim the courts will be overrun by self-representing claimants looking to claim all kinds of stuff without a legal type to hold their hand.
This will add untold amounts of cost and delay into the small claims court, the “judges” say, a prospect, they note, that causes them “serious dismay”. The net result will be less income from court fees and a massive demand for extra resources while the LIPS flail about haplessly in their vain attempts to press their cases.
The burden of all this additional expense will fall on the public purse rather than insurers, they say. Which is the one shred of good news in all this, holding out the possibility that motorists could still be eligible for that £40 off your motor insurance deal.
“There are serious access to justice issues for those with genuine but modest personal injury claims” the judges say, because 90% of them will switch from a fast track to a small claims track. The anticipated LIPS explosion will mean cases take at least twice “but probably three or four” times as long to sort out, they insist.
Yes, some claimants, will give up and b*gger off, the judges agree. But, they say, “the reduction in case volume will come nowhere near cancelling out the consequential increase in the demands upon court and judicial resources.”
Net result (according to CET): the court service will have to “fund increased resources at the same time as experiencing a reduction in fee income” because “if insurers are to be relieved from bearing the burden of the preparation of cases for meritorious claimants (because the claimants will no longer recover fixed costs), then the claimants will need the additional and expensive assistance of the courts and the judges to be able to prepare and present their cases. There is no sign in the impact statement that this likely consequence has been addressed.”
Plus also, they reckon, the RTA might collapse because 90% of its caseload has been removed.
They don’t half bang on, these unelected judges.
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