England: Online court for disputes up to £25,000 would remove judges and lawyers

Plans for online courts that would remove lawyers and judges from disputes would allow people to settle disagreements of up to £25,000 according to a new report.

The report envisages cases dealt with by non-judges online, allowing courts to dispense with their reliance on paper.

Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Briggs, author of the report, said the majority of hearings would be automated and interactive.

Many hundreds of cases per year could be moved from courtrooms he said.

“I consider that there is a clear and pressing need to use the opportunity presented by the digitising of the civil courts to create for the first time a court — the Online Court — for litigants to be enabled to have effective access to justice without lawyers,” he stated.

Administrative case officers, rather than judges, would make decisions in the majority of applications. However, family law cases would be excluded from the system.

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who commissioned the report, said last October that people must be able to access justice without having to instruct lawyers.

Speaking in New Zealand, he said at the time: “We have to recognise that securing access to justice can be achieved in many cases at much lower cost by using others who know the law and can apply it well.”

He added: “It is therefore necessary to re-cast our justice system to equip it for the present, and to future-proof it so far as possible. Stabilising its financing, making effective use of its buildings, allocating work appropriately, and exploiting the advantages that technology and digitisation can bring are the only way to do this. To do this will be to ensure access to justice in the 21st Century and to safeguard one of the principal legacies of Magna Carta for now and for the future.”

Lord Justice Briggs accepted that the idea of a paperless court would require the suspension of disbelief among people familiar with the system. The report is open to consultation until the end of May.