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We have seen utilitarian arguments on the costs of inefficient litigants in person and the failure to divert potential cases to mediation.

We have heard moral arguments on the protecting the principles of justice; it should not be necessary to state that injustice is an evil to be avoided at all costs - or at least, a reasonable cost - but it is necessary to speak up in these times of moral austerity, and I applaud those who make the case.

We should be reluctant to make the utilitarian case for justice; it is good in and and of itself and this should always be forcefully argued: but those who see nothing but profit and loss might benefit from a warning that an effective and accessible system of justice makes us all safer.

Those who would govern unjustly, or withold their workers' wages, or extort the desperate in reeking slums for rent and evict them at whim, might be delighted to know that the courts are for the rich, and that the vast majority of working people are mere denizens, unable to assert the legal rights accorded to the wealthy citizen.

Wiser heads - learned and layman alike - might wonder whether anything of value would last long in such a society. Eroding justice has some knock-on costs that far exceed the bills for court delays and innocent defendants sent to prison.