header-logo header-logo

One court, one judiciary?

05 July 2018 / Steven Gasztowicz KC
Issue: 7800 / Categories: Features , In Court
printer mail-detail
nlj_7800_gasztowicz

Steven Gasztowicz QC considers the radical question of whether there could ever be ‘one civil court’ & ‘one judiciary’

  • Describes moves towards an integrated system of courts and tribunals

In 1988, when I was seven years’ call (heady days!) I sent a paper to Igor Judge QC, as he then was, who was the Leader of my circuit. It was in response to a talk he had given about the way in which the Bar had to adapt to modern times.

In my no doubt rather naïve paper, I suggested some basic parts of the legal system also needed straightening out, and that it was absurd for some cases to have to go to the county court and others to the High Court. I suggested it was even more absurd that, for example, a District Judge (then known as a ‘registrar’) was tied to only deciding particular matters in the county court and anything else had to go to a circuit judge, while the same individual sitting in the same room could

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

BCL Solicitors—Robert Lawrie

BCL Solicitors—Robert Lawrie

Commercial disputes team lead promoted to partner

Mourant—Tom Fothergill

Mourant—Tom Fothergill

Jersey finance and corporate practice welcomes new partner

Shakespeare Martineau—Solicitor apprentices

Shakespeare Martineau—Solicitor apprentices

Firm launches solicitor apprenticeship programme with inaugural cohort

NEWS
Government plans for offender ‘restriction zones’ risk creating ‘digital cages’ that blur punishment with surveillance, warns Henrietta Ronson, partner at Corker Binning, in this week's issue of NLJ
Louise Uphill, senior associate at Moore Barlow LLP, dissects the faltering rollout of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 in this week's NLJ
Judgments are ‘worthless without enforcement’, says HHJ Karen Walden-Smith, senior circuit judge and chair of the Civil Justice Council’s enforcement working group. In this week's NLJ, she breaks down the CJC’s April 2025 report, which identified systemic flaws and proposed 39 reforms, from modernising procedures to protecting vulnerable debtors
Writing in NLJ this week, Katherine Harding and Charlotte Finley of Penningtons Manches Cooper examine Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, the Supreme Court ruling that narrowed what counts as matrimonial property, and its potential impact upon claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
In this week's NLJ, Dr Jon Robins, editor of The Justice Gap and lecturer at Brighton University, reports on a campaign to posthumously exonerate Christine Keeler. 60 years after her perjury conviction, Keeler’s son Seymour Platt has petitioned the king to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, arguing she was a victim of violence and moral hypocrisy, not deceit. Supported by Felicity Gerry KC, the dossier brands the conviction 'the ultimate in slut-shaming'
back-to-top-scroll