'Radical, long-term thinking' - including the use of technology to resolve disputes before they ever get to a court - will be needed to cope with an inevitable lack of resources in the justice system, the outgoing lord chief justice said this week. 

In a speech to the City of London on challenges facing the justice system, Lord Burnett of Maldon, who retires in September, welcomed 'positive steps' from the government. 'The Ministry of Justice budget is on a much more sustainable footing than it was,' he said. 'Investment in digitisation continues. The enormous damage done by the evisceration of judicial pensions a decade ago has been reversed.'

However, predicting that governments will always find it tempting to trim spending on justice rather than on 'public services that attract more political interest' he said: 'We must all work even harder to ensure that decision-makers not only see the justice system as an essential underpinning for a growing economy and a stable society but also are prepared to make the investment needed to sustain and nurture it.'

Dominic Raab and Lord Burnett of Maldon

Lord Burnett: 'Structures that have evolved since passage of Constitutional Reform Act do not help'

Source: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

This will require greater efforts to pursue efficiency. 'Radical, long-term thinking is required, much of which would have started sooner were it not for the pandemic,' he said. 'Continued modernisation must be part of the answer, using technology well and getting more disputes resolved before they ever reach a court.' 

In an apparent reference to the master of the rolls' vision of a 'funnel' of online dispute resolution procedures with court only as a final resort, the lord chief justice cited the need for 'proportionality'. 'A complex and lengthy process may be necessary for some cases; speed and ease will be more important in others.'

In all jurisdictions there must be constant questioning of whether the current way of doing things best delivers justice, he said. 

For the longer term, the lord chief justice repeated his criticism of the 2005 reforms which created the Ministry of Justice. 'The structures that have evolved since the passage of the Constitutional Reform Act do not help,' he said. 'There is much to think about'.

 

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