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Access to Justice means lots of different things to lots of different people. If I can afford to spend £500k on a court case through to appeal over a protracted length of time in relation to an issue which, to the rest of the world is trivial or close to demininis and the Court and lawyers are available as a means to enable me to do so, then, unless the case itself is an abuse of process or vexatious, am I not legally entitled to do so? Of course this case stands out as somewhat of a bizarre matter given the nature of the final damages and the costs involved, but the parity of costs to damages should not necessarily be an overriding issue - the facts and legal issues or substantive nature of the case should be the overriding issue - together with access to justice. If that means that occasionally we have cases like this, so be it. Of course, I completely see why the judges have said what they have, but I can't help feeling that they are saying what they are expected to say given the vast media coverage on legal matters, funding, legal aid etc there has been over the last few years to accompany the structural changes following LASPO/Jackson.

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