‘Civil and administrative justice systems remain undeveloped’: Oxford University professor
“Resolving disputes: a framework for holistic reform” – a report by Christopher Hodges, emeritus professor of justice systems at the University of Oxford, for Nuffield Foundation, a UK-based charitable trust – emphasized the importance of a comprehensive justice system in the 21st century.
The report focused on civil and administrative justice, specifically disputes between people or those between individuals and businesses or the state, such as consumer, family, housing, property, and employment cases.
Traditional justice system
According to Hodges, justice systems currently focus primarily on dispute resolution, as opposed to regulatory systems, which centre on compliance with the law.
“Significant lessons can be drawn from the experience of modern regulatory systems, which are adopting a systems approach and thereby delivering better outcomes, preventing problems and contributing to a society that is more cohesive and vibrant both socially and economically,” Hodges said.
Hodges explained that justice systems traditionally consider and resolve each case individually and deal with disputes through the law, lawyers, and courts.
“But finalising a dispute does not mean that changes in behaviours or procedures occur so that similar disputes are prevented in future,” Hodges said. “In addition, we know little about the causes of many common disputes, as we do not study or collect data on them and use it for learning and feedback.”
Hodges described traditional justice systems as:
- fragmented by design
- entailing high costs, often rendering access to justice a “mirage”
- ineffective at utilizing affordable alternatives like mediation and advice
“Civil and administrative justice systems remain undeveloped, working largely within their own siloed vacuums – such as civil justice, administrative justice, regulation, business support, and social advice and support,” Hodges said.
Need for ‘holistic reform’
“The challenge is to join up these different silos and systems to form an effective comprehensive one,” Hodges said. “Additional mechanisms such as providing information and education, data collection, and supportive oversight of changes are critical for success.”
Hodges called for a holistic system that would promote:
- widespread good behaviours
- continuing improvements in terms of learning and performance
- an ability to deal confidently with unfamiliar risks and innovations
- trust levels supporting social cohesion and commercial vibrancy
- an ability to tackle funding challenges and other obstacles
- universal access to courts
“Achieving this requires the reconfiguration of multiple elements so that the system delivers a series of additional functions, especially prevention, learning and change, rather than simply dispute resolution,” Hodges said.
Report’s recommendations
- a governance authority, engaging all stakeholders, for designing, managing, and reforming the system
- one independent regulator for legal professionals in place of eight frontline regulators
- a comprehensive complaints landscape producing pertinent data
- a review process for establishing the holistic system and for making the changes needed for various kinds of disputes
- a simple portal providing user-friendly, cost-effective, digital, and non-adversarial pathways and techniques for specific disputes and their types
- one or more databases reducing the confusion arising from unconnected pathways
- data controllers analyzing and investigating the data, signals, and facts
- independent bodies overseeing the appropriate retrospective, prospective, or regulatory action
- coordinated delivery of support services
According to Hodges, doing the following would assist in achieving a holistic system:
- Set clear ethical principles and rules for attaining the results sought by society, communities, markets, and the nation
- Review and refresh the principles and rules to reflect current information or insights via a continuous, self-reinforcing process
- Support the adoption of the principles and rules
- Help people understand the principles and rules
- Support access to the system in place
- Ensure that the system can resolve disputes, deliver relief, restore balance to relationships, and compensate for damages or losses
- Capture data to identify issues, know whether the system works, and promote learning
- Offer information and input on problems
- Support voluntary and evidence-based changes and improvements by individuals and bodies to improve behaviour and culture, get the desired outcomes, and limit future risk
- Intervene formally to achieve change if it does not happen on its own
- Monitor the system
- Take steps for further action if necessary
More United Kingdom law news
Here are some other recent international news stories involving the UK.
In mid-October, the UK justice ministry announced the launch of a pilot to deploy technology enabling the digital transfer of court cases so that judges across the country could preside over remote hearings from hundreds of miles away.
According to the “Access to justice: the view from the Bar” report, recently released by the Bar Council of England and Wales, some barristers surveyed said they were “ashamed” of the state of the justice system.
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