Top judge savages 'costly' litigation system
A leading High Court judge last week delivered a broadside at the litigation system, describing it as prohibitively expensive, damaging to the parties and offering little help towards a correct or just result.
Speaking at a reception in London organised by mediation group the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), Mr Justice Gavin Lightman - a judge in the Chancery division of the High Court - called for mediation to be given a more central role in the legal system.
He said mediation should become part of the core syllabus of law students and judges should be trained in mediation, so that they could 'implicitly and explicitly' fulfil the role required of them.
Lambasting the current system, he said: 'The already outrageous and ever-increasing costs of litigation are beyond the means of the more advantaged members of the public, including the middle class and small to medium-sized business entities.
They are ruinous, and the threat and risk of the burden of costs must daunt all but the most gung-ho litigant.'
He said the rise of mediation had strengthened perceptions that the adversary form of proceedings, 'affords no limited grounds for any confidence that it will result in a correct or just result - at best it affords a limited bias in that direction'.
The judge called for more public funding for mediation.
He added: 'The saving of court and judicial time currently expended on avoidable litigation, which alternative dispute resolution offers, must provide more than a complete return - and an entirely satisfactory method of fulfilling the state's duties under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights [the right to a fair trial].'
Jeremy Fleming
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