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The Civil Justice (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2007 will be gazetted on Friday (March 30) and introduced into the Legislative Council on April 25.
"The Bill seeks to improve the civil procedures in the High Court, District Court and Lands Tribunal," a Judiciary's spokesman said. The main objectives are to -
(a) streamline and improve the civil procedures;
(b) encourage and facilitate settlement; and
(c) enable judicial resources to be better distributed and utilised.
The Bill introduces, among other things, amendments to streamline certain existing procedures. For instance, the Court would be empowered to deal with certain applications on paper without a hearing. "This would help make civil proceedings more efficient and expeditious," the spokesman said.
To facilitate settlement, the Bill introduces a number of amendments to promote greater transparency between the parties at an earlier stage, for example, the amendments extending the Court's power to order pre-action discovery and post-commencement discovery against non-parties to all types of civil claims. The spokesman explained that currently, these powers were restricted to only personal injuries and death claims.
Further, the Bill introduces a new cause of action called "costs-only proceedings" to enable parties who have reached settlement on a substantive dispute and have agreed who should pay the costs, but cannot agree on the amount of costs, to apply for the costs to be taxed by the Court of First Instance or the District Court. "At present, where parties cannot agree on the amount of costs even though the substantive dispute has been resolved, it is necessary to litigate the whole dispute, consuming time and costs," the spokesman explained.
The Bill also introduces a number of features to enable better distribution of the court's resources, including a leave requirement for interlocutory appeals in the Court of First Instance, extending the Court's existing jurisdiction on wasted costs, and allowing persons other than the Secretary for Justice to apply for a vexatious litigant order. These amendments would help screen out unmeritorious applications and vexatious litigation, and discourage undue delays and misconduct, thereby enabling better distribution and use of the court's resources.
The spokesman said that the Judiciary had consulted widely on the proposed amendments in the Bill. The stakeholders, including the legal profession, have been consulted at various stages since the establishment of the Working Party on Civil Justice Reform ("CJR") in February 2000.
"The introduction of the Bill signifies an important step of the work of the Steering Committee on CJR, set up in March, 2004, to take overall charge of the implementation of the recommendations in the Final Report on CJR," the spokesman said.
"This is the first step of the legislative process. To complement the provisions introduced by the Bill, amendments would be made to subsidiary legislation. One important feature to be introduced through amendments to subsidiary legislation is to give the courts greater case management powers, so that issues could be identified earlier and parties could reach earlier settlement if possible. If settlement cannot be reached, they could proceed to trial with the issues more focused and cases disposed more expeditiously. The amendments to the relevant subsidiary legislation would be introduced into the Legislative Council in due course," the spokesman said.
"The road to much needed reform of our civil justice system has been a long one. It is hoped that the legislative process will be completed by mid-2008. The Judiciary will allow adequate lead time for the training of judges and judicial officers and the training of members of the legal profession by the profession before bringing the legislation into operation upon enactment."
Remarks: The Bill was gazetted on March 30, details of which are available at http://www.gld.gov.hk/cgi-bin/gld/egazette/gazettefiles.cgi?lang=e&year=2007&month=3&day=30&vol=11&no=13&gn=7&header=1&acurrentpage=12&df=1&nt=s3&agree=1&gaz_type=ls3&part=1&newfile=1&pid=.
Ends/Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:42
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