Just like the star of Bethlehem, legal costs are in the ascent in Scotland.
The Scottish Government is consulting on raising court fees for Scottish jurisdiction. Its objective is to ensure that the fees collected are sufficient to pay for running its courts. A “demand-led” remission scheme is available which is intended to protect access to justice.
Court fees have generally been reviewed every three years,
with the last full round being implemented in 2015.
In 2016 the Scottish Government concluded that it was
necessary to move further towards full-cost recovery in the courts, which has
been the policy of the current and previous governments for some time. The
Court Fees (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Order 2016 came into force on
28 November 2016. This order raised the
level of fees significantly, although certain fees, such as those in the
Sheriff Personal Injury Court, were frozen in order to protect access to justice. The overall effect was intended to bring the
level of fees to the point at which they cover the costs of the civil justice
system.
Inflationary pressures in the wider economy have driven the
Scottish Government to adhere to the original three yearly review to set fees
for the three- year period commencing on 1 April 2018 (by which point it will
be 17 months since the last fees increase).
Unlike the position in England & Wales, where a policy
of enhanced court fees has developed, it is not intended that court fees should
move to a point where a profit is made (that could be used to subsidise other
parts of the justice system).
A separate but connected development is the Civil Litigation
(Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Bill currently before the Scottish
Parliament. The Scottish Government state that this will make the costs of
civil action more predictable by increasing the funding options for pursuers of
civil actions through greater availability of “no win, no fee” success fee
agreements.
It is proposed that
qualified one-way cost-shifting should be introduced for personal injury claims
and this will also protect pursuers from the risk of having to pay their
opponent's costs in personal injury cases if the case is lost, provided they have
acted properly (as in England & Wales).
LEI ensures that personal injury claimants are able to keep
their damages in full. Considered together these two developments support the
premise that LEI will provide even better value than before for our policyholders
in Scotland.
Landlords Legal Solutions
By the way – a reminder that we have updated our Landlords
policy to reflect the new landlord and tenant law in Scotland.
With all best wishes for the festive season from the Product
Development team at ARAG.
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