Plans to hike court fees in Northern Ireland will jeopardise access to justice for ordinary citizens, lawyers warn.
The Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunal Service (NICTS) wants to increase court fees in civil claims by a total of around nine per cent over three years, starting in 2026. And after these rises, it proposes annual inflationary increases.
“Access to the justice system should not depend on whether you can afford to issue court proceedings or not, “said Sabrina Lawlor, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers’ (APIL) Northern Ireland representative.
“Courts should be funded primarily through taxes, and people who need to use them could make an affordable contribution towards the service they use,” she said.
“The civil courts are a vital public service which benefits all of society - not just those who have to turn to them for help in their hour of need. Without justice through the courts, for example, injured people must turn to the State for support while negligent wrongdoers escape accountability.
“Anyone can become a victim of a negligent employer or a reckless driver. People who suffer needless injuries must have access to the civil justice system to get the redress they need to put their lives back on track,” she went on.
In its response to a NICTS consultation on the proposals, APIL said it is also concerned that county court ‘scale fees’ - the fixed amounts courts can order a losing party to pay the winning one for their legal expenses – have significantly lagged behind inflation.
“The failure to review scale costs has left many law firms chronically underfunded during a period of extraordinary inflationary pressure,” said Ms Lawlor.
“Firms representing victims of negligence often have to pay the initial costs of pursuing a case, such as the court fees and medical expert fees, upfront. The combination of inadequate scale costs and rising court fees has a significant impact on a firm’s ability to do this. It’s a double hit on legal professionals and the vulnerable people they represent.
“If solicitors are not properly renumerated for the work they do to progress cases to trial, and court fees are set at higher and higher levels, there’s a real danger some will be forced to decline taking on more complex cases due to the expense of funding these types of cases.
“It means seriously injured people face being denied the redress to which they are entitled by law,” she said.