While ministers could specify that the online court be used only for civil claims valued up to £25,000, ‘nothing in the Bill limits the use of online procedures to such cases’, the Constitution Committee warned last week in its report on the Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill.
The Bill could be used, for example, ‘to compel’ the use of online proceedings for everything but very high-value claims, and ‘many, or even all, civil, family, tribunal and employment proceedings’. Therefore, online courts could replace oral hearings in a far wider range of cases than anticipated.
Moreover, the Bill allows for procedural rules to be made that would compel the use of online proceedings, raising questions about the constitutional principle of access to justice. According to the Office for National Statistics, more than five million adults can be characterised as ‘non-internet-users’.
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