WOOLF REFORMS

Woolf Reforms and Track System Allocation

Woolf Reforms and Track System Allocation

Ned Flanders after seriously getting injured at NilGood College from fall of shelf has to consider about complicated civil case procedures. The report discusses the procedure along with its reforms and shortcomings.

In 1994, Lord Woolf was requested to supply a radical review of the Civil Justice System. Over the years, there were numerous investigations and the aim of the recommendations are habitually the same.

How to Reduce, Cost and Complexity?

In his 1995 Interim Report - 'Access to Justice', Lord Woolf recognised the overhead as the key difficulties which are interrelated to one another and arose from the uninhibited environment of civil litigation. These difficulties were recognised before as opined by Michael Zander in 'Are There Any Clothes for The Emperor to Wear'? It is part and parcel of a lawful system.

Due to the complexity of cases, this inadvertently determinants delay and as an outcome, cost of litigation increases. Mostly the difficulties arise from the uninhibited environment of civil litigation.

There is no clear judicial blame for organising one-by-one cases and are left to the discretion of the counsels and litigants and more over, no general management of the civil courts and as the system is fragmented.

The objectives of recommendations were directed at considering with the well-known ills of civil litigation:-



It is too adversarial - very competitive. This decreases the likelihood of out of court settlement.

Delay - leisurely stride is habitually accepted. There is no sense of urgency by the lawyers. Timetabling is generally not adhered to cost often out of percentage to what is at stake.

Lord Woolf's answer to all the ills is to have a new culture; radical reform and new landscape. Previous alterations are mentioned as secondary tinkering. The difficulty is not with the reforms proposed but rather the partial or incomplete implementation.

The Civil Justice Review 1988 suggested aligned procedure; jurisdictional changes; procedural alterations, amalgamation of courts and reallocation of cases.

Since difficulties are interrelated so too are the answers inter-dependent. So what are Lord Woolf's alterations that have been applied today?

Transfer of administration of cases from the solicitors to the courts;

To make every individual adhere to timetabling;

To double-check early groundwork of cases;

Penalize awkward behaviour;



The major aim is for the cases to be administered with justly. The overhead objectives would need hardworking participation by the courts. Without judicial command, it boosts an adversarial culture.

Litigation is often glimpsed as a battlefield where no directions apply. There is little or no focus on cost / expenses; delay; inquiry of compromise and fairness will take a second seat. Expenses will are inclined to comprehensive, disproportionate and unpredictable and delay often unreasonable.

Therefore, Lord Woolf made radical reforms to double-check radical results. It was recounted by David Galdwell - Head of Lord Chancellor Department (Civil Division) that the change is the utmost change in the civil justice system glimpsed in over a century. The radical changes suggested by Lord Woolf were:



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