MPs say that increased court fees are denying access to justice

Thousands of people are being denied access to justice because of onerous court and tribunal fees, according to the justice committee of MPs. 

The committee has urged the government to roll back on plans to increase court fees because there has been a “precipitate drop” of almost 70 per cent in the number of cases being brought after the regime was implemented in July 2013.

The MPs said: “The arguments presented to us by the government in this inquiry have not swayed us from our conclusion, on the evidence, that the regime of employment tribunal fees has had a significant adverse impact on access to justice for meritorious claims.” 

They call for fees in employment tribunals to be “substantially reduced”. The number of employment tribunal cases brought by individuals fell by about two-thirds to some 4,500 each quarter from October 2014 to June 2015. 

The committee also condemned as “unjustified” the recent rise in the fee for bringing a divorce petition from £410 to £550, taking it to roughly double the cost to the courts of providing the service. “It cannot be right that a person bringing a divorce petition, in most cases a woman, is subject to what has been characterised in evidence to us as effectively a divorce tax,” it said.

Fees for financial claims over £300,000 increased last year from £1,920 to £10,000. The Ministry of Justice is considering increasing the cost of oral hearings in asylum and immigration cases from £140 to £800.

Jonathan Smithers, president of the Law Society, said: “There is a growing imbalance created by fee increases that places the courts out of reach for many small businesses and all but the wealthiest individuals in society, putting them at an unfair disadvantage in a justice system that increasingly favours the better resourced.”

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