The 2024 general election was never likely to feature civil justice much. With the economy, immigration, health and education front and centre as they always are, albeit with their order of importance shifting about, things like the poor state of our civil courts failed to trouble the major parties’ policymakers.
Yet a review of all their manifestos reveals quite how far down the pecking order the civil justice system is. Despite the essential role it plays in righting wrongs, resolving disputes, ensuring injured people are compensated, helping employers and staff resolve issues and so on, it features not at all on any party’s plans for government, with the slight exception of the Conservatives. Even there, the only mentions relate to an Arbitration Bill and the Pathfinder Courts pilot in family court proceedings being extended
On the state of the courts estate, access to justice, legal aid and all the rest of it, there was not a peep, with the focus instead on the more politically attractive criminal courts (although even here, there seems to be rather less lock-‘em-up tubthumping than usual).
We must hope that whoever forms the new government appoints an energetic Civil Justice Minister who can turn things around. There needs to be a Civil Justice Commission, formed within 12-18 months of the new administration being formed and given a similar length of time to bring people together from across the wider sector, review the last 20 or more years of changes and recommend what can be done to bring the system up to scratch. This might not be the glass slipper that can turn the civil justice system from a Cinderella service to something much better, but it would be a very good start.