Mohammed Saleem Tariq & Anton van Dellen reflect on the early days of the Jackson reforms
The notions of promoting access to justice and controlling costs in civil litigation have walked arm-in-arm down the red carpet and through the doors of Lord Justice Jackson’s reforms which have been in force since 1 April 2013. For civil practitioners, claim strategies must be adapted to manage cases in line with new Practice Directions, modifications to the concept of the overriding objective and deep-seated procedural changes in the area of costs management. An immediate interpretation of these rules paves the way for the concept of proportionality to lead civil justice into a new era of increased fairness.
A new perspective
The philosophy behind the reforms was to strive for proportionality between the costs and the quantum claimed. At the heart of the change is the overriding objective. In essence, the overriding objective now overflows into the rules of case management, making it strategically difficult to obtain relief from sanctions. With the advent of CPR r 1.1(2)(f), requiring compliance with rules, practice directions
