Introduction

At any rate in legal matters, adverse weather is not confined to that approaching from the West, that is, from the Atlantic Ocean, Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea. European civil justice initiatives continue to sweep across the North Sea to London (the seat of the UK Parliament). These initiatives take the form of EU Regulations, or Directives, or Recommendations issued by the European Union authorities, or European Court of Justice case law, or the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg court on the European Convention on Human Rights.

But how bad is it? Is this easterly weather system nothing more than intermittent gentle breezes or have there been severe storms? The answer is that weather from the East has mostly involved gentle breezes (so gentle as almost to escape notice). But (on some occasions) easterly blasts have exceeded gale force 10: see discussion in section III of the European Court of Justice's ban on anti-suit injunctions and examination in section VII of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 where the British Parliament created a new United Kingdom Supreme Court, to secure complete separation of functions between the legislature and judicial system, and to ensure that the Lord Chancellor (that is, the Minister of Justice) can no longer sit as a judge. These tempests have changed the landscape of British law and of its institutions and remedies.

European Statutory Changes to English Civil Procedure

Six statutory projects within European Union law have been mandatorily absorbed within the United Kingdom, and other Member States, under the authority of the EU legal framework. Those changes can be listed as follows.