By Rupert White and Neil Rose


When the new Business Court opens in 2010 it will not have the electronic document filing system that is 'crucial' to its success, the Lord Chief Justice's first review of the courts system revealed this week.



The head of judiciary also warned that judges and court staff are 'seriously overstretched', in a report that laid bare the consequences of under-investment in the justice system.



The review revealed that phase two of the Commercial Court IT project, aimed at providing an integrated electronic diary and document repository for the court, 'will not be ready for piloting when Commercial Court hearings are expected to start in the new Rolls Building in 2010'. Lord Phillips blamed the Courts Service (HMCS) for failing to provide funds to implement the plans.



The need for phase two, he said, 'is acknowledged and crucial if the Commercial Court is to be able to provide a proper service to the international business community'.



Last year the Gazette revealed that HMCS had again delayed phase two, this time until 2009, indicating that electronic filing would be unlikely to happen until 2010 (see [2007] Gazette, 17 May, 3). This would still, however, have been in time for the opening of the Commercial Court's replacement, the Business Court.



HMCS claimed last year's delay was to ensure consistency across the courts and save cost, but the delays are widely thought to be due to the knock-on effects of the creation of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the re-issuing of major MoJ and HMCS IT contracts in September last year.



Anthony Maton, member of the London Solicitors Litigation Association's IT committee, said the delay was the result of 'short-sighted planning' that jeopardised the reputation of the Commercial Court.



'Now we have at least another year of delay, with no actual promise that anything will happen by 2010, which means that when the Commercial Court opens in its brand-new building, it will do so without the needed IT,' he said. 'It is impossible to think of any commercial law firm opening a new building without the necessary IT, and nor should the government.



'How long will foreign parties be prepared to wait for the English system to crawl into the 21st century when other jurisdictions leap ahead?'



Meanwhile the Lord Chief Justice also used his report to highlight concerns over the damage being done to the High Court though lack of resources. He repeatedly pointed out 'the impact of increasing workloads on judges and courts against a background of budgetary and resource restrictions, and reductions in the number of court staff'. He said: 'I am aware that pressure on resources is likely to be even more acute in the next few years and I am concerned about the implications of this.'



Lord Phillips catalogued staffing, IT, delays in appointing judges and other problems facing courts across England and Wales. He identified the court estate as 'an area of ever-growing concern because of a history of under-investment and growing [£200 million] maintenance backlog'.



The pressure on High Court judges came in particular from the rapidly increasing number of asylum and immigration appeals, 'the vast majority [of which] are found to have no merit in law', and which do 'not justify the input of High Court judges', he said. Not all judicial review applications, he added, require the High Court's exclusive jurisdiction.



'We must ensure that High Court judges are used to best advantage, and this calls for reconsideration of how court business is allocated,' he said. Lord Phillips has previously supported unifying the High Court and county court into a single civil and family jurisdiction, but there has been little visible progress since the government accepted it as a long-term objective in 2005. He said: 'I believe that it is important that this proposal receives proper consideration.'



Lord Phillips said he was concerned that the increased use of in-house advocates by the Crown Prosecution Service and problems with legal aid remuneration were having a detrimental effect on the criminal bar. In what has been seen as a thinly veiled attack on the government, Lord Phillips talked about the pressure that legislation has put on the criminal justice system, 'some of which has reflected the politicisation of sentencing'.



Lord Chancellor Jack Straw said the review 'raises issues of real importance to the good administration of justice'.



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