Effectiveness Of The Woolf Report Reforms

... ily going to change, so it is unfair that litigants should be punished for their lawyer´s failings.

Another key change is the procedure in the High and County Courts is now the same, they used to have completely different sets of rules; the High Court had them written in the 'White Book´ and the County Court in the 'Green Book´. A writ was needed to start a case in the High Court and a summons had to be issued to start a case in the County Court, now it is just a Claim Form document in both courts. The rules are written in much simpler English, whereas before it was legal jargon; for example what used to be called the 'Plaintiff´ is now known as the 'Defendant´. This has made things much simpler and achieves the aim of making things understandable to the people using the system. The use of e-mails and fax has now been permitted, this is a big advantage over the old system which allowed only letters for correspondence, it saves a lot of time and as a result, money - therefore fulfilling the aim of delivering a service with reasonable speed.

Pre 1999 the disclosure, or 'discovery´ as it was then known, of documents entailed each party having a duty to provide the other with a list of documents used in their case. Woolf proposed that disclosure should only involve documents that would hinder a party´s case as the previous method was time consuming and expensive, however, the new rules are not actually that different. Documents must be disclosed which 'adversely affected or supported a party´s case´ (Elliot and Quinn), but the documents no longer have to be of 'material extent´.

In order for the courts to aim to become self-sufficient, court fees have been significantly increasing. There is now a 'pay-as-you-go´ system, which was introduced in 1999 by the Labour government, this entails paying at each stage of action. For example the Small Claims commencement fee is £20 and the High Court commencement fee is £300. Nevertheless, there is still a legal aid system where people on financial support can get aid to help them take someone to court. The introduction of court fees has been condemned, as it is believed people with low incomes will be discouraged from taking reasonable action to ensure the enforcement of justice. It is also arguable that justice is an essential part of everyday needs, as are heal ...