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It is therefore perhaps not surprising that a number of respondents
argued for
abolition of the Running List. The Working Party's view is that, given the changes
being proposed for the way in which cases should be listed for trial, the need for a
Running List should progressively diminish. As the proposed reforms gain familiarity
amongst legal practitioners and the court, ways to use vacated time slots without
resorting to a Running List are likely increasingly to be found without significant
periods of unused judicial time ensuing.
(a)
Thus, at present cases often settle without the court being notified of settlement.
But the setting of a pre-trial review as a milestone will help to ensure that the
court is made aware of any prior settlements. Setting the pre-trial review two or
three months before trial or the start of the trial period would give the court
some leeway to fix alternative trials or hearings for the period vacated by the
settlement.
(b)
Any diary vacancy should be filled flexibly, channelling into that vacancy cases
from areas where delays are building up. For instance, if it is taking a long time
to get dates for interlocutory hearings or for interlocutory appeals to be heard,
the vacated dates should be used to deal with these matters. This could be done
not merely by making horizontal adjustments in diary commitments among
judges sitting at the same level, but also vertically. Where, for instance,
"special chambers" interlocutory hearings are building up before the masters,
hearings to be fixed or already fixed for hearing before the master could be
directed to be heard directly by the judge who finds himself with some spare
capacity.
(c)
Thought should also be given to publishing on a regular, perhaps daily, basis the
availability of vacated slots on the Judiciary's website inviting parties with
urgent applications to bid for a hearing in such slots, either as a fresh
application or, by consent, with a view to bringing forward a hearing date
previously fixed.
Notes
Including the Law Society, a set of barristers' chambers and an individual barrister.
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