Briggs: the permanent revolution continuum. David Greene reports from the barricades
The Briggs interim report harkens yet more change in the permanent revolution that is civil justice (Civil Courts Structure Review: Interim Report, Lord Justice Briggs). In his address of the Central Committee to the Communist League Marx talked of permanent revolution predicting the bourgeois Menshevik and proletarian Bolshevik revolutions in 1917. If we might cast Lord Woolf as the Menshevik; Jackson LJ as the Bolshevik, perhaps we might see Briggs LJ as the Leninist. Unfortunately the analogy will lead to identifying the Stalinist to come. Briggs does, however, continue the permanent revolution in civil justice that has now been prevalent for 20 years.
As modern litigators we welcome constructive change and Briggs brings more to the table, talking of bringing the IT “revolution” to the court. It is notable that he was assisted by the aptly named “Hard Working Group” but unlike Woolf and Jackson the inner consultancy group does not include any practitioners. Further the work was undertaken at some speed in parallel with the government’s spending review. It foresees cuts in
