The Minister for Justice will ask the Cabinet at its meeting today to authorise the appointment of more judges, The Irish Times has learned. He is doing so in response to the latest report from the courts' Committee on Court Practice and Procedure, chaired by Ms Justice Denham, which is being published today.
The report is one of the elements in a programme of reform of personal injuries compensation. The committee was asked to examine how court rules could be changed to improve the system of dealing with cases once they reached the courts. The Personal Injuries Assessment Board, which started looking at accidents at work claims earlier this month, represents another part of the programme.
This report makes 23 recommendations for changes in court practices, including a reduction in the time allowed to lodge a claim for personal injuries to two years, greater enforcement of deadlines and penalties for unnecessarily increasing costs.
It also recommends an independent study to review all claims costs and examine how they can be reduced. It sets out realistic time-frames for the lodging of documents, and calls for taking control of the case out of the hands of the litigants' legal teams, and putting them in the hands of the judiciary, who would progress the cases through case management.
Warmly welcoming the report, Mr McDowell said he had already introduced the two-year limit, as recommended, and had also decided to set up a group to examine the issue of costs.
Ms Justice Denham said: "There is a responsibility on us all in the legal community to ensure an ease of access to the courts system. Those who seek redress before our courts must be facilitated by modern systems, rules and practices which protect them from lengthy delays and excessive costs.
"This report is a step towards adopting new approaches to personal injuries claims which will benefit both the person taking the case and the defendant," she said.
Among the complaints made about the existing system were: Rules of Court were not sufficiently enforced and were reviewed too infrequently; once the Civil Bill or Plenary Summons was issued the plaintiff had control of the pace of litigation, resulting in delays and an escalation of costs; it is left to the parties to decide if and when any pre-trial meetings take place; the letter of claim is normally lacking in any real detail; there was a lack of pressure from the courts on litigants to progress cases; there was a lack of consistency in awards and it was too difficult to strike out unmeritorious claims or defences.
The report recommends amendment to the Rules of Court to enable a just, efficient, effective system which promotes early co-operation, early exchange of information between parties, and early settlement. It also recommends the introduction of case management in appropriate cases.
Pleadings should be realistic and detailed, pre-trial meetings to narrow the issues should be compulsory in appropriate cases, and should establish where written reports can be substituted for oral evidence, it says.
The committee also recommended that judges be given power to determine the amount of costs in appropriate cases, costs of unnecessary expert witnesses should be disallowed, the taxation of costs should be modernised and parties using procedures to enhance costs should suffer penalties. There should also be public information both on the cost of personal injuries litigation and on awards, along with development of the Solicitors Act to make fees transparent.