JUSTICE: administrative centres proposed for four major provincial cities in England and Wales


Senior judges have called for the creation of Administrative Courts in the regions in a bid to reduce costs for claimants and improve access to justice - but the government will not say if it will pay for them.



A judicial working group led by Lord Justice May, vice-president of the Queen's Bench Division, recommended in a report published last week that four regional centres of the Administrative Court should be set up in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.



The report - compiled after garnering public and professional opinion, including the views of judges and members of the legal profession - said the centres should handle work currently done in London at the Royal Courts of Justice.



'The essential point is proper access to justice is not achieved if those in the regions can only bring judicial review and other claims in the Administrative Court in London,' said the judges in their report. 'The present system discriminates against those who are not in the south of England.'



Sukhdev Bhomra, president of Birmingham Law Society, said the regions need such courts and urged Whitehall to rise to the funding challenge. 'In Birmingham we welcome the recommendations,' he told the Gazette. 'We urge the government to implement the report's recommendations as soon as possible.' If such matters as appeals and applications for judicial review of the actions of government and other bodies can be heard locally, he said, 'it will cost less and the applications will be heard quickly'.



But the government would not say whether the money would be made available for the creation of the proposed courts.



A spokesman for the Courts Service said that officials have started examining the recommendations, but added that 'this is a complex project which will have to compete with other proposed developments... No decisions as to its relative priority have yet been reached'.



Law Society President Andrew Holroyd said the proposal would improve access to justice and reduce costs for those outside London, including 'the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community'.



The working group of judges would seem to agree. 'There is a strongly held view that people should be enabled to bring administrative claims out of London in the regions and to have them heard there. They make what we regard as a very strong, economic, business, professional and social case for doing so,' they said in a statement.



Rupert White