Co-operation versus litigation: could mediation be the new & improved face of justice, asks Glenn Stanbury
The question of how readily a party in dispute can obtain justice has been a hot-button topic within the legal profession for many years, and continues to go unanswered. Following the introduction of the Woolf Reforms, the court process was focused on facilitating greater access to justice, and with the introduction of the Jackson Reforms, it was hoped that justice would be obtained at proportionate cost. The reforms introduced off the back of Lord Justice Jackson’s report have been received positively by many, negatively by some, but their impact was, in many respects, curtailed through austerity and legal aid cuts.
Changing landscape
With the landscape behind the reforms changing so dramatically, it could be argued that the impact of these combined ideals of “access to justice at proportionate cost”, is no longer practical to assess, and furthermore, that one must consider whether such aims even remain possible to achieve in view of the “austerity-wise” society the
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