A public interest initiative, founded by a litigant in person after his own experiences in court, has published research on LiPs which found ‘administrative reliability has become the decisive gatekeeper to justice’.
The report, by Blind Justice CIC, covered a two-year period from 2024 to 2026 focusing on LiPs conducting their own cases in the County Court, High Court and employment tribunal. Its findings, the report said, are drawn ‘on anonymised composite data from 20 cases’.
Almost all (92%) of the cases Blind Justice analysed involved missing or unprocessed documents while 85% ‘involved mandatory submissions not placed before decision makers’. The report added 76% of the 20 cases had incidents of emails unacknowledged or unlogged.
It said: ‘The administrative systems [LiPs] must navigate remain designed for professional users. Document loss, unacknowledged correspondence, mandatory procedural submissions not placed before decision-makers and inconsistent procedural advice routinely prevent unrepresented parties from reaching judicial determination.
‘Self-representation is, for most, an act of necessity born from financial exclusion. When court administration fails, unrepresented parties bear the consequences – often without knowing a failure has occurred until it is too late to remedy.’
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Blind Justice contacted Andy Slaughter MP, justice committee chair, to highlight the report’s findings as well as correspondence from the Ministry of Justice to whom it had also submitted its report.
Speaking to the Gazette, Blind Justice founder Edward Romain, who has recently returned to his legal studies and is planning to take SQE1 and SQE2, said: ‘I left the law with a view that was somewhat idealised. When I found myself in the County Court and then the High Court as a litigant in person I was startled by the difference and injustice I saw around me.’
His research was ‘born out of my own experiences’ and Blind Justice created as a research project as ‘reform is needed so desperately’.
The organisation highlighted ‘five recurring patterns of administrative failure that systematically disadvantage litigants in person’ including that ‘administrative failures that should be neutral in effect were found to consistently prejudice' unrepresented litigants. These failures 'created tactical opportunities for represented opponents’.
The report provides recommendations it says ‘address the systemic failures identified’ with each designed to be ‘implementable within existing legal frameworks and resource constraints’.
Recommendations include that all filing should generate an automatic timestamped confirmation accessible to the submitting party, consistent procedural guidance and digital access for unrepresented users that do not assume procedural knowledge but ‘guide users through procedural requirements’ and ‘display case progress in plain language’.
The report said: ‘This research has documented systematic failures in court administration that disproportionately affect litigants in person. These are not isolated incidents or individual errors. They are predictable consequences of systems designed for professional users operating in an era of mass self-representation.
‘Universal logging, transparent audit trails, consistent guidance, verification of mandatory submissions, accountability for error – these are achievable reforms that would materially improve access to justice for the most vulnerable court users.
‘Justice should be blind but it should never be inaccessible.’
Blind Justice is also conducting research into regulation, including the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and AI technology, Romain said, adding that the group’s aim was ‘not just to help litigants in person but to help the court’.
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