Reform, court procedure

The landscape of civil actions for personal injury was transformed with the introduction of the Woolf reforms and the new Civil Procedure Rules on 26 April 1999. The first phase was the introduction of a unified code of civil procedure applicable to all civil coiuts thereby eliminating some of the unnecessary distinctions between Coimty Court and High Court procedure. 

Reforms to the civil claims procedures proposed by Lord Woolf were adopted on 26 April 1999. These were designed to ensure that courts deal with claims justly and quickly, and the resulting Civil Procedure Rules constitute probably the most far-reaching single set of changes in the administration of civil justice. At the time of writing it remains to be seen what effect the introduction of the Human Rights Act will have on the reforms and the system as a whole. 

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