The Scottish Government has published details of a new Bill that it claims will bring about the biggest modernisation of Scotland’s courts in a generation.
The Courts Reform (Scotland) Bill implements many of the recommendations of the Scottish Civil Courts Review, led by principal reviewer Lord Gill and commissioned in 2007. Lord Gill recommended substantial changes to modernise and improve the structure and operation of the courts, which he described in the review as ‘slow, inefficient and expensive’.
Key provisions in the bill include:
- Increasing the threshold under which the sheriff court can exclusively deal with civil cases from £5,000 to £150,000 - freeing up the Court of Session to deal with the most challenging civil disputes. This is expected to strengthen the role of the sheriff court, while reducing costs and delays for litigants.
- The creation of a new national personal injury sheriff court, where such cases will be heard by specialist sheriffs.
- Plans for specialist sheriffs and specialist summary sheriffs in areas of law such as family, housing, personal injury and commercial law, with the expertise to deal with these issues as swiftly as possible.
- New procedures for judicial review cases in the Court of Session including a three month time limit, and new procedures for appeals within the Court of Session and some appeals to the UK Supreme Court to improve efficiency.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said:
“At present many lower value personal injury cases are raised in the Court of Session costing the parties a disproportionate amount and clogging up the court.
“In future, most of these cases will be able to be raised in the specialist personal injury court with specialist sheriffs and procedures designed to achieve settlement swiftly and at a proportionate cost to the parties. The sheriff courts are well placed to handle this transfer as the total cases coming out of the Court of Session is only around three per cent of the civil caseload in the sheriff courts.”
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