Lawyer raises justice fears

Reporter: JANICE BARKER
Date online: 23 March 2010

AXING circuit judges from Oldham County Court would add to costs, cause delays and breach promises made when the new court opened in 1998.

That’s the view of Oldham’s Law Association which has called on the regional court service to think again about plans to withdraw circuit judges from hearing cases in Oldham.

The county court building in New Radclyffe Street also covers Rochdale, where the county court closed in 1997.

But if the proposals go ahead, local lawyers fear people seeking civil justice will have to travel to Manchester, when there is no rail connection, or pay high parking costs in the city centre.

And they say the move may be prompted to fill courts in the expensive new Civil Justice Centre in Manchester.

Solicitor Keith Etherington, the association’s parliamentary and political liaison officer, who works at local company Mellor and Jackson, has written to complain.

In his letter to Richard Knott, the court service’s North-West regional director, Mr Etherington said: “For a witness or other party that lives in Saddleworth they would have, according to the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive website, a minimum journey time of 1 hour 31 minutes.

“This cannot be a sensible or proportionate way of enabling Oldham people to access justice.

“A party choosing to drive into Manchester would be faced with a car parking charge of £15.50 per day in the Spinningfields car park on New Quay Street.

“This cost is likely to be borne by each of the parties, witnesses and legal representative for each day of a multi-track trial. This cost is three times the cost of parking on New Radcliffe Street, Oldham.”

District judges are based at a court and circuit judges, as the name suggests, are used at hearings for around 210 days a year.

Mr Etherington’s letter criticises the lack of consultation over the move and points out that circuit judges at Oldham County Court mainly do fast-track cases — which made up 103 out of 114 cases from April to September last year.

Oldham would need another full-time district judge to shoulder all the existing workload as well as trials and fast-track cases.

He added: “A claimant to a multi-track claim can easily pay £2,000 in court fees simply for the right to bring his action before a judge.

“The litigant is therefore a key stakeholder and must be entitled to have some say in where the trial of the action is heard.”