HAMLYN - College of Social Sciences and International Studies ...

Civil Justice
access to information about legal problems and legal remedies. 29
More importantly, Professor Germ's study suggests that people
generally fail to pursue their legal remedies for a variety of
reasons other than a lack of relevant information or advice.
It is conventional wisdom that people would use the official
legal system more if it were more user-friendly and cheaper.
The Woolf reforms were essentially based on that thesis. The
evidence, however, is to the contrary.
The history of the small claims court is in this respect
instructive. When the county court was established in 1846 it
had a maximum jurisdiction of £20. The jurisdiction gradually
increased but relative to the High Court, the county court was
the place for small claims. Yet those who used the system as
plaintiffs were basically traders to recover debts. The Consumer
Council's 1970 study, Justice out of Reach, showed that individuals
hardly ever used the county court, as plaintiffs. That
realisation led to the establishment in 1973 of the small claims
court within the county court, with a special procedure
designed to make it more attractive to ordinary people. A small
claims case, typically, is handled in a private hearing in the
judge's chambers, usually without lawyers. The parties are
seated across the table from each other, with the district judge at
its head. Neither the judge nor lawyers (if there are any) wear
wigs or robes. The judge may help parties who appear without
a lawyer to make their case. The atmosphere is likely to be
considerably more relaxed and informal than proceedings in
open court where the judge and the lawyers are wigged and
robed and where the traditional adversary system operates. The
general rule is that each side pays its own costs. The system is
popular amongst those who use it. Professor John Baldwin's
recent survey of the view of litigants in the county court
concluded that whereas almost every interview with litigants
who had been through the ordinary-open court trial produced
complaints, there were few complaints from the small claims
litigants and that they broadly liked the system. ("No matter
what criterion of litigant satisfaction was adopted, the small
claims regime came out ahead—and by a wide margin." 30 )
29 A survey of 8,000 members of the public for whom English was their first
language concluded that about 16 per cent of the adult population are
functionally illiterate and that 8 million people are so bad at reading and
writing that they cannot cope with the demands of modern life [Adult Basic
Skills, Basic Skills Agency Survey (1998)).
30 J. Baldwin, "Litigants' Experiences of Adjudication in the County Courts",
[1999] 18 Civil Justice Quarterly, 12 at 39.
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