Sir Geoffrey Vos has hailed the newly established Online Procedure Rule Committee (OPRC) as a ‘watershed towards making all kinds of dispute resolution accessible’. But the master of the rolls has disowned his 'famous, or perhaps infamous, “funnel”' - the holistic vision whereby only disputes of high value and complexity would reach court. 'Research has shown that dispute resolution pathways are more complicated than that,' Vos said last week in a speech on the Future of the Courts.
The MR remains convinced, nevertheless, that online dispute resolution can resolve ‘many, if not most of the millions of disputes that arise every year’.
Lord Briggs’ landmark report in 2016 proposed that the court-based online portals created by the HMCTS reform programme would be expanded to cover the entire pre-action space. Instead, said Vos, the plan now is to digitally connect up existing non-court public and private dispute resolution processes both with each other, and the digital courts and tribunals.
Vos said the digital justice system, the integration of online advice services, mediation and arbitration portals, ombuds services and the digital court process, will ‘in time feel like a one-stop shop for those that need it most’.
The OPRC, of which the MR is chair, comprises president of the Family Division Sir Andrew McFarlane; senior president of tribunals Sir Keith Lindblom; specialist solicitor Brett Dixon, Law Society council member for personal injury; Sarah Stevens, expert in the lay advice sector; and technology expert Gerard Boyers.
The committee, which met for the first time in June last year, aims to provide ‘structure and governance’ for a digital dispute resolution environment ‘that will provide better access to justice’.
Vos said rules imposed by the OPRC will ‘maintain shared standards and values’, adding: ‘The combination of values and standards may also offer the opportunity to provide transparency and data that is simply unimaginable now. There could, for example, be a rule to require participants to report on the volume and types of resolutions or advice services they are providing.’
Vos said integration would ‘ensure that users will not fall between the cracks of the system as they do now’. He added: ‘They will be able to be directed and redirected around the digital ecosystem in order to find the resolution process most appropriate for their problem or problems. The whole process is aimed at fast solutions and resolutions.’
If users are unable to navigate the system without assistance, Vos suggested integration would allow users to be directed to online legal advice and ‘hopefully’ legal aid portals.
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