History of the Common Law
Year 12 Unit 1 Model Answers
Question 1
(a) Outline what is meant by alternative dispute resolution and how it operates within the civil justice system – 14 marks
The phrase alternative dispute resolution, also known as ‘ADR’ essentially is a range of ways to avoid full scale litigation. Access to justice is a fundamental right and is protected under Article 6 European Convention of Human Rights, therefore, if society is to operate effectively there must a way of ensuring that disputes between individuals can be resolved. Importantly, this does not necessarily have to involve going to court.
There have always been alternatives to court, the best known is probably negotiation reached through a compromise. It was following the 1996 Woolf Report that ADR began to be more encouraged within civil justice. Since the mid-19th century there have been 60 or so reports into the problems within the civil justice system. Lord Woolf identified four main problems with the civil justice system: cost, delay complexity and the adversarial process. As one lawyer described them, cost, delay and complexity are ‘The unholy trinity of consequences which flow once a lawyer gets hold of a dispute.’ In 1994, before the reforms were implemented High Court cases on average took 163 weeks in London and 189 weeks elsewhere in the country to progress through the court system and the majority of this time was how long it took for the actual case to start; 123 wks in London and 148 weeks elsewhere. Woolf concluded: “Delay is an additional source of stress to parties who have already suffered damage.”
Along with the Woolf Report there were a number of other reports in the 1990s such as the 1997 Middleton Report which concluded that a move away from the complex adversarial system and towards ADR was best. The reforms which followed heavily encouraged ADR as a means of avoiding these problems. The idea was that by removing power from the lawyers and putting cases more in control of the
Question 1
(a) Outline what is meant by alternative dispute resolution and how it operates within the civil justice system – 14 marks
The phrase alternative dispute resolution, also known as ‘ADR’ essentially is a range of ways to avoid full scale litigation. Access to justice is a fundamental right and is protected under Article 6 European Convention of Human Rights, therefore, if society is to operate effectively there must a way of ensuring that disputes between individuals can be resolved. Importantly, this does not necessarily have to involve going to court.
There have always been alternatives to court, the best known is probably negotiation reached through a compromise. It was following the 1996 Woolf Report that ADR began to be more encouraged within civil justice. Since the mid-19th century there have been 60 or so reports into the problems within the civil justice system. Lord Woolf identified four main problems with the civil justice system: cost, delay complexity and the adversarial process. As one lawyer described them, cost, delay and complexity are ‘The unholy trinity of consequences which flow once a lawyer gets hold of a dispute.’ In 1994, before the reforms were implemented High Court cases on average took 163 weeks in London and 189 weeks elsewhere in the country to progress through the court system and the majority of this time was how long it took for the actual case to start; 123 wks in London and 148 weeks elsewhere. Woolf concluded: “Delay is an additional source of stress to parties who have already suffered damage.”
Along with the Woolf Report there were a number of other reports in the 1990s such as the 1997 Middleton Report which concluded that a move away from the complex adversarial system and towards ADR was best. The reforms which followed heavily encouraged ADR as a means of avoiding these problems. The idea was that by removing power from the lawyers and putting cases more in control of the