Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Preface to the first edition of ‘The Machinery of Justice in England’
- Abbreviations
- I Historical introduction
- II Civil jurisdiction
- 4 Civil law and criminal law
- 5 County courts
- 6 The High Court
- 7 The mode of trial
- 8 Complaints about the civil courts
- 9 The enforcement of judgments and orders
- 10 The Civil Division of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords
- 11 The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
- 12 Arbitration
- III Tribunals
- IV Criminal jurisdiction
- V The personnel of the law
- VI The European dimension
- VII The cost of the law
- VIII Law Reform
- Appendix A The Report of the Civil Justice Review
- Table of Cases cited
- Table of Statutes cited
- Table of Stationery Office publications cited
- Index
8 - Complaints about the civil courts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Preface to the first edition of ‘The Machinery of Justice in England’
- Abbreviations
- I Historical introduction
- II Civil jurisdiction
- 4 Civil law and criminal law
- 5 County courts
- 6 The High Court
- 7 The mode of trial
- 8 Complaints about the civil courts
- 9 The enforcement of judgments and orders
- 10 The Civil Division of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords
- 11 The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
- 12 Arbitration
- III Tribunals
- IV Criminal jurisdiction
- V The personnel of the law
- VI The European dimension
- VII The cost of the law
- VIII Law Reform
- Appendix A The Report of the Civil Justice Review
- Table of Cases cited
- Table of Statutes cited
- Table of Stationery Office publications cited
- Index
Summary
Complaints about law courts have a long history. We can feel satisfaction that ‘our one great judicial scandal’ happened in the reign of Edward I, but we have had a steady stream of lesser troubles. There has never been a time when law courts have been free from complaints: complaints have been about delay, costs, vexatious elements in procedure, incompetent administration and a generally inconvenient and inefficient arrangement of courts. These charges are difficult to examine because the incidence shifts and because there is apt to be a confusion between cause and effect. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the service given to the public by law courts has not satisfied consumers other than those charged with criminal offences who have a vested interest in being acquitted through the inefficiency of judicial process. Delay and costs have been particularly stressed in recent years.
Part of the trouble in the past has stemmed from an addiction to out-of-date ways of conducting business. In the early middle ages, when the law courts began, there was no post and no telephone and the way in which one did business with the King or with a high official was to ‘wait upon him’: the citizen went to where he held court and hung about patiently until the great man was pleased to give him an audience.
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- Jackson's Machinery of Justice , pp. 79 - 85Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989