The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, has called for ‘assessors’ in court to help judges understand developments in the commercial and financial markets.
Assessors, who provide neutral input to the judge on the background of a case, have long been used in the Admiralty courts, but never in the commercial court.
Giving the Jill Poole Memorial Lecture at Aston University, Lord Thomas said judges have a duty to keep the law up-to-date, as ‘we are living in a time of very significant development’.
Although we have an adversarial system, the courts are becoming less so with judges actively managing claims and costs, and with single joint experts being appointed, he said.
‘With commercial practice constantly developing, financial markets and new financial instruments constantly developing, the presence of an assessor—or two assessors—to clarify issues, to educate, and enable judges to get to grips with expert evidence, will be all the more of a benefit than it was understood to be in the past.’
