Court System in UK Law

The High Court's power to dismiss a pending action for want of prosecution is but an instance of a general power to control its own procedure so as to prevent its being used to achieve injustice. Every civilised system of government requires that the state should make available to all its citizens a means for the just and peaceful settlement of disputes between them as to their respective legal rights.

But it would, in my view, be undesirable in the interests of the fair and efficient administration of justice to tolerate a system under which, as a sort of bye-product after the trial of an action and after any appeal or appeals, there were litigation upon litigation with the possibility of a recurring chain-like course of litigation. It would be a retrograde development if an advocate were under pressure unwarrantably to subordinate his duty to the Court to his duty to the client.

That is to adopt too dogmatic an approach to what should in my opinion be a broad, merits-based judgment which takes account of the public and private interests involved and also takes account of all the facts of the case, focusing attention on the crucial question whether, in all the circumstances, a party is misusing or abusing the process of the court by seeking to raise before it the issue which could have been raised before.

Under the English system of administration of justice, the appropriate method of correcting a wrong decision of a court of justice reached after a contested hearing is by appeal against the judgment to a superior court.

My Lords, it seems to me that to require a court of co-ordinate jurisdiction to try the question whether another court reached a wrong decision and, if so, to inquire into the causes of its doing so, is calculated to bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

Logical analysis forces the conclusion therefore that in the result there would in a civil action have been punishment for conduct not particularised in any criminal code and that such punishment had taken the form of a fine not receivable by the State but as a sort of bonus by a private individual who would apart from it be solaced for the wrong done to him.

If the non-compliance cannot be characterised as trivial, then the burden is on the defaulting party to persuade the court to grant relief. If there is a good reason for it, the court will be likely to decide that relief should be granted.