Press Association
Saturday 11th February 2012
A blueprint to create a civil justice system "fit for the 21st century" has been published.
The report by Consumer Justice Scotland highlights areas of the system that it considers are most in need of reform.
The consumer campaigning organisation said the civil justice system, which deals with issues such as divorce, debt recovery and housing problems, needs to be more "user friendly, affordable and accessible".
The organisation said the current system focused too much on the needs of solicitors, advocates and judges and not on people who use the system.
Proposals in the Making Civil Justice Work for Consumers report include educating the public on the legal system, publicising ways of resolving disputes without going to court, a "user friendly" approach to dispute resolution and "joined up" advice services.
Solicitor Sarah O'Neill, the head of policy for Consumer Focus Scotland said: "This report, informed by years of research and policy development, sets out a four-step approach to reforming the wider civil justice system to ensure it better meets consumers' needs and delivers access to justice.
"Most of us will use the civil justice system at some point in our lives. For many that interaction will be difficult and unwelcome because of the stressful issues they are dealing with.
"The public's experience of the civil justice has too often been that it doesn't properly support them to resolve their dispute in the most appropriate way at the most appropriate time.
"We believe that implementing the steps set out in this report would give Scotland the user-friendly, affordable and accessible civil justice system that consumers desperately need in the 21st century."
