Small claims should be put to the test

The ground-breaking judgment of the Supreme Court in R (Unison) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51 was central to the Justice Committee’s May report into government proposals to raise the small claims limit for personal injury claims, Patrick Allen, senior partner of Hodge, Jones & Allen, writes in NLJ this week. In Unison, the court ruled the government’s employment tribunal fees unlawful because they prevented access to justice. Allen writes that past and future civil justice reforms, such as fixed costs and the discount rate, ‘should all be subjected to a Unison test and dropped or amended if they fail’.