Dear Lord Chancellor,

I was asked to be Chairman of a Review of the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) by your predecessor in October 1996. The full team, which was completed in November 1996 was:

We had the help of a secretariat from the Lord Chancellor's Department whose composition was as follows: Nigel Osner (Secretary), Melanie Field (Assistant Secretary) and Annette Atherton. They were assisted by Giles Crown, a member of the Bar. Andrew Wright of the Court Service gave considerable help in the preparation of statistics. Jaspal Jandu in the Lord Chancellor's Department assisted us greatly with the preparation of our graphs.

We were asked to complete a report by the end of the summer of 1997.

We started by identifying our aims and objectives. We then prepared a questionnaire for the Lords Justices of Appeal. In addition we wrote to senior representatives of a number of foreign jurisdictions seeking information about whether or not their appeal courts were experiencing similar difficulties to our own and about what action they were taking. We also advertised, inviting early views.

Members of the Review team visited or spent time in courts hearing appeals, the Civil Appeals Office and the Royal Courts of Justice branch of the Citizens' Advice Bureau. Some of us went to North America and benefited at first hand from the experience of the Provincial and Federal Courts in Toronto, New York, San Francisco and Washington. I attended meetings of the Court of Appeal Users' and Administration Committees.

We were keen to consult as widely as possible. In particular, we wanted to ensure that we took fully into account the views of the Lords Justices and that as far as possible, we gained their support for our proposals. Apart therefore from sending them the questionnaire, we met many of them individually. In addition, I personally attended three "start of term" meetings of the Lords Justices in order to keep them informed of our thinking and to get their reactions. Without exception, they were helpful and constructive.

In the light of our preliminary findings, we issued a consultation paper in March, 1997. Its purpose was to seek views on a number of emerging possibilities and options. We received a substantial number of replies to our questions. Some representative organisations supplemented their written replies by coming to give evidence orally to full meetings of the Review. The City of London Law Society Litigation Sub Committee invited us to an open forum meeting to discuss the paper.

A full list of those who helped us through their written responses or through meetings and discussions is set out in Appendix 4. We are extremely grateful to all of them for the time and effort they devoted to our enquiries. We especially appreciate the help given to us by those in foreign jurisdictions, both those we visited and those who replied to our questions. They went out of their way to help us and we benefited greatly from their experience.

Our task would not have been possible in the time available to us without the impeccable support and assistance given to us by our secretariat. They had to control large volumes of submissions, to prepare papers for our consideration, to summarise our discussions and to organise our timetable, all of which they did with considerable success. We are indebted to them.

Finally, I would like to express my personal appreciation to the other members of the Review team. They are all very busy people. They managed nevertheless to find the large amount of time necessary for the Review and for consideration of the difficult issues it involved. Their energy, enthusiasm and good humour made an important task not only stimulating but also most enjoyable.

Main conclusions and recommendations

Our detailed conclusions and recommendations are set out in the attached report. We recognise that some of them might be affected by the forthcoming report of Sir Peter Middleton, but we have not thought it right to delay completion of this report. Below I set out a brief summary.

We have concluded that an individual who has grounds for dissatisfaction with the outcome of a civil case should always be able to have his or her case looked at by a higher court so that it can consider whether there appears to have been an injustice and, if so, can allow an appeal to proceed. However, we have also concluded that in a civil appeals system:

1. appeals must be dealt with in ways which are proportionate to the grounds of complaint and the subject matter of the dispute;

2. one level of appeal should be the norm;

3. not all appeals need to reach the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal.

With these conclusions in mind we have made recommendations:

1. to ensure that the Civil Division deals with cases of appropriate weight for a Court consisting of senior and very experienced judges;

2. to improve the way the Civil Division works so that it can deal with its caseload more quickly;

3. which should achieve better access to justice.

Our main recommendations can be summarised as follows:

• the requirement for leave to appeal should be extended to nearly all cases coming to the CA;

• leave to appeal against an interlocutory decision should only be granted if it is at an appropriate stage in the proceedings for an appeal to be heard;

• certain appeals which now reach the CA should be heard at a lower level. The largest category of such cases will be appeals against decisions in fast track cases;

• it would still be possible for appeals which would normally to be heard in a lower court to reach the CA in certain circumstances. In particular, an appeal could be considered if it raises an important point of principle or practice or one which for some other special reason should be considered by the CA;

• there is an increasing role for appropriate judicial case management;

• the Civil Appeals Office should be headed by a single administrative head, who must be accountable to the Chief Executive of the Court Service and have line management responsibility for every member of staff in the Civil Appeals Office;

• the judicial functions carried out by the Registrar of Civil Appeals should be carried out by two designated legal officers. Anyone dissatisfied with the decision of a legal officer should be entitled to have that decision referred to a Lord Justice;

• if our recommendations are accepted, there will be no requirement for a judicial post of Registrar of Civil Appeals. When the present office holder leaves office, he should not be replaced;

• there is a need for more focused procedures. Cases should be better prepared at a much earlier stage in the process and realistic timetables should be set, which must be strictly observed;

• the CA should impose appropriate time limits on oral argument on appeals;

• the balance of judicial time should lean more towards reading and less towards sitting in court;

• there is a need to develop the use of information technology to support the other recommendations of this Review;

• information for litigants in person about the appeal process and what it can deliver must be available at an early stage. The information must be easily understandable and delivered in a range of different ways;

• there should be an enhanced Administration Committee to assist the Master of the Rolls with his overall responsibility for the speed, efficiency and economy with which the work of the CA is conducted;

• better information needs to be collected in order for the CA to monitor and evaluate its work satisfactorily.

Yours sincerely,


[signed]


Jeffery Bowman

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