ABSTRACT
Many readers of this chapter will be aware that in April 1999 the Supreme Court1 and the county courts of England and Wales adopted new procedural rules as the result of recommendations made by Lord Woolf of Barnes in his report to the Lord Chancellor entitled ‘Access to Justice’.2 The new Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR)3 replace the former Rules of the Supreme Court (RSC), which applied in the Court of Appeal and the High Court, and the County Court Rules (CCR), which applied in the county courts.4 Lord Woolf’s original intention was to replace all the former rules simultaneously, but this proved to be impractical and some of the former rules were kept in force (and in some cases remain in force) for the time being by Schedule 1 to the new rules. Such of the old rules as remain in force are being progressively replaced by new rules as quickly as the Rule Committee can draft them and the courts’ bureaucratic machinery can be adapted to accommodate them.5 The rules relating to costs were in the second batch of new rules to be adopted and are now fully in force in all the courts. In this chapter I shall be concentrating on the provisions in the CPR, but it will be necessary occasionally to refer to the old rules. In such cases I shall refer only to the RSC, unless there was some significant difference between the RSC and the CCR. Lord Woolf’s reforms also effect some important, and often rather confusing, changes in the technical vocabulary of English procedural law (claimant for plaintiff; disclosure for discovery, etc.). Where it becomes necessary to draw attention to such cases I shall do so thus: claimant [plaintiff].
