Basic principles of the reforms

 

Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) is the new procedural code, which was enacted in 1998 and revoked the Rules of the Supreme Court with effect from 26 April 1999. The Rules, a result of the reforms proposed by Lord Woolf’s Access to Justice (Final Report) 1996, now govern proceedings in the civil cases of the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), the High Court, and the county courts. The Civil Procedure Rules were designed to improve access to justice by making legal proceedings cheaper, quicker, and easier to understand for non-lawyers. Unlike the previous rules of Civil procedure, the CPR commence with a statement of their Overriding Objective, both to aid in the application of specific provisions and to guide behaviour where no specific rule applies.

The Woolf Interim Report (1995) is a very valuable document in its statement of the objectives of a civil justice system, on the failings of the approach existed before and its radical proposals for reform.

The main idea of the civil procedure reform is to render civil justice system more efficient, namely to make it less expensive and more rapid. To achieve these goals it was proposed to shift away from the adversarial culture to judicial management and to encourage alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

The proposals centred on four strategies or principles:

(1) greater judicial management of the process including, notably, tighter and properly enforced timetables and a greater control on discovery and the use of expert evidence (both of which have an escalating effect on costs);

(2) the allocation of different types of cases, normally determinable according to the amounts at stake² in the disputes, to different sets of management rules;

(3) the encouragement of early settlements and resort to ADR procedures;

(4) a greater transparency of legal costs.

Thus the main proposals envisaged a fundamental shift along the spectrum of judicial culture, away from a purer adversarial approach to a more inquisitorial approach. The Rules in fact made radical changes to civil process of the correspondent courts. Under the new regime the judge becomes a case manager. The court sets a timetable for litigation, with the parties being under an obligation to the court to adhere to timescales which control the progress of the case. Procedure rules are supplemented by detailed instructions made by the judge which support the rules, known as practice directions, and pre-action protocols.

Pre-action protocols were introduced³ after the reform in 1999 to speed up the early parts of the litigation process. Pre-action protocols encourage greater contact between the parties at the earliest possible opportunity in order to encourage better and earlier exchange of information with a view to⁴ fair and early settlement of claims. Pre-action protocols can be enforced⁵ by the court and are also seen as an aspect of the courts’ new responsibility of case-management under the Civil Procedure Rules.

 

II. DEVELOPMENT

React to the following statements: agree or disagree. Support your answers by information or facts from the text.

1. Civil Procedure Rules is the Rules of the Supreme Court.

2. The reform was proposed by the Lord Chancellor in 1996.

3. As a result of this reform civil procedure in the UK became purely inquisitorial.

4. The main objective of the reform was to raise prestige of judges and to make their role more important.

 

2. Find in the text the information to answer the following questions:

 

1. Who is “the father” of the reforms in civil judiciary?

2. What is the main idea of the reform mentioned in the text?

3. What fundamental change did Lord Woolf’s proposals envisage?

4. What changes of the civil procedure were introduced after the reform in 1999?

3. Scan the text to find the words which mean:

a. регулювати;

b. доступ до правосуддя;

c. попередній;

d. передбачати;

e. відповідний;

f. альтернативне вирішення спорів.

.

4. To summarize the text, complete the sentences:

1. Civil Procedure Rules is ….

2. It is a result of ….

3. The main idea of the reform is ….

4. The proposals for the reform are based on the following principles:…

5. The fundamental change is that the reform led to ….

6. The main results of the radical changes ….

III. PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE

INTERVIEW. Work in pairs.

Choose the role you’d like to play: One person is the interviewer
(a journalist/a lawyer/a law student or some other person of your choice) and the other - the interviewee - Lord Woolf.

1 The interviewer. Prepare 10 questions to ask your groupmate, who takes the role of the interviewee about the civil procedure reform in the UK.

2 The interviewee. Think about the possible questions his/her character might be asked and prepares answers.

Present the interview to your groupmates in the class.

 

IV. WRITING

Use the facts and language you have learnt from the texts of this Unit and from the previous ones to compare the main points of civil procedure in the USA and the UK in written form.

The following phrases will help you to describe similarities and contrasts: as compared with, like, unlike, both, both … and, neither of, the same is true of.

 

V. OVER TO YOU

You are offered some facts about the history of the civil procedure reforms in the UK. Using the prompts, information from the texts of the Unit and some additional information, make up the descriptive article to be published in some Ukrainian law magazine.

History of the Reform

In 1994, the Lord Chancellor instructed the Master of the Rolls, Lord Woolf, to report on options to consolidate the existing rules of civil procedure.

In June 1996 Lord Woolf presented his "Access to Justice Report 1996" [ "Access to Justice Final Report ", by The Right Honourable the Lord Woolf, Master of the Rolls, July 1996, "Final Report to the Lord Chancellor on the civil justice system in England and Wales" ] in which he "...identified a number of principles which the civil justice system should meet in order to ensure access to justice. The system should:

(a) be "just" in the results it delivers; (b) be "fair" in the way it treats litigants; (c) offer appropriate procedures at a reasonable "cost"; (d) deal with cases with reasonable "speed"; (e) be "understandable" to those who use it; (f) be "responsive" to the needs of those who use it; (g) provide as much "certainty" as the nature of particular cases allows; and (h) be "effective": adequately resourced and organised." Lord Woolf listed two of the requirements of case management as: "...fixing timetables for the parties to take particular steps in the case; and limiting disclosure and expert evidence".

The second thread of the report was to control the cost of litigation, both in time and money, by focussing on key issues rather than every possible issue and limiting the amount of work that has to be done on the case.

The report was accompanied by draft rules of practice designed to implement Lord Woolf's proposals. These rules: granted wide management powers to the court proposed that cases be allocated to one of three tracks depending on their nature, limiting or requiring specific actions; and introduced the concept of proportionality to the costs regime.

Implemented as a result of reforms suggested by Lord Woolf and his committee, one of the revelations of the rules is the Overriding Objective embodied in Part 1 of the Rules, which states: (1) These Rules are a new procedural code with the overriding objective of enabling the court to deal with cases justly. (2) Dealing with a case justly includes, so far as is practicable – (a) ensuring that the parties are on an equal footing; (b) saving expense; (c) dealing with the case in ways which are proportionate – (i) to the amount of money involved; (ii) to the importance of the case; (iii) to the complexity of the issues; and (iv) to the financial position of each party; (d) ensuring that it is dealt with expeditiously and fairly; and:::(e) allotting to it an appropriate share of the court’s resources, while taking into account the need to allot resources to other cases.:1.2::The court must seek to give effect to the overriding objective when it –:::(a) exercises any power given to it by the Rules; or:::(b) interprets any rule.

The rules are written not just for lawyers but are intended to be intelligible for a litigant in person.

 

 

Unit 4 Notary System Section 1 Notary Bodies of Ukraine

I. WARMING-UP

 

1. Answer the following questions:

1. What kind of legal profession is not directly connected with judicial proceedings?

2. What problems does a notary deal with?

3. What is the notary responsible for as a public official?

4. Have you ever been to a notary? What was the reason?

2. Match the following English words and expressions with their Ukrainian equivalents:

1) notarial acts a) приватний нотаріус

2) public notary b) архів

3) to discharge duties c) нотаріальні дії

4) notary activity d) державний нотаріус

5) private notary e) нотаріальна діяльність

6) record office f) виконувати обов`язки