This book is a collection of papers that address a fundamental question: What is the role of civil justice and civil procedure in the various national traditions in the contemporary world? The book presents striking differences among a range of countries and legal traditions, but also points to common trends and open issues. It brings together prominent experts, professionals and scholars from both civil and common law jurisdictions. It represents all main legal traditions ranging from Europe (Germanic and Romanic countries, Scandinavia, ex-Socialist countries) and Russia to the Americas (North and South) and China (Mainland and Hong Kong). While addressing the main issue – the goals of civil justice – the book discusses the most topical concerns regarding the functioning and efficiency of national systems of civil justice. These include concerns such as finding the appropriate balance between accurate fact-finding and the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time, the processing of hard cases and the function of civil justice as a specific public service. In the mosaic of contrasts and oppositions special place is devoted to the continuing battle between the individualistic/liberal approach and the collectivist/paternalistic approach – the battle in which, seemingly, paternalistic tendencies regain momentum in a number of contemporary justice systems.

This book reviews the knowledge corpus about access to civil justice across disciplines and legal traditions and proposes a new research framework for civil justice reform. This framework is intended to foster further critical analysis of the justice system in a systematic and organized way. In particular, the framework underlines the tensions between different values considered as central to the civil justice system, and in doing so potentially allows for conscious, reflected and enlightened choices about the values that are to be prioritized in the reform of justice systems.

5. Making Tracks: Nick Armstrong

National civil justice systems are deeply rooted in national legal cultures and traditions. However, in the past few decades they have been increasingly influenced by integration processes at the regional, supra-national and international level. As a by-product of the emergence of economic and political unions and globalisation processes there is pressure to harmonise or even unify the way in which national civil justice systems operate. In an attempt to create a ‘genuine area of justice’, new unified procedures are being developed, which operate in parallel with national civil procedures, and sometimes even strive to replace them. As a reaction to the forces that endeavour to harmonise and unify procedural laws and practices, an opposing trend is gaining momentum: one that insists on diversity and pluralism of national civil procedures. This book focuses on the evolution of procedural reforms in various jurisdictions and the ongoing transformation of national civil justice systems.

The end of the last century witnessed two major events in the field of civil justice: the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) came into force and the Human Rights Act (HRA) gave effect to the European Convention on Human Rights. This volume assesses the effect of the Act and attempts to reconcile the expediency and efficiency essential to modern civil justice with the need for recognition of human dignity and equality inherent to human rights. The book is primarily concerned with the effects of the HRA on civil procedure and, in particular, the effects on the CPR. It examines the view that the new civil procedure regime could be susceptible to HRA challenges. More specifically, the work discusses whether there are differences between the CPR and the ECHR ideas of what constitutes a fair trial or just decision and between their views of proportionality. The study notes the differences between common and civil law and discusses whether there is any coming together with other European systems. This book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers as well as lawyers and judges with an interest in the practical implications of the HRA.

This book consists of general reports of the International Conference on Judicial Management from Comparative Perspective. This conference held on November 8–10, 2017, at Tianjin University, was organized by China Law Society (CLS) and International Association of Procedural Law Congress (IAPL). The general reporters are prominent scholars who have been selected worldwide by the IAPL Presidium to organize national reporters who shall do researches of his/her own state under the guide of the general reporter’s questionnaire on the specific subject. By this way, the comparative studies are trying to depend on national researches but overcome the general style of “talk past each other.” Moreover, the general reports summarize and give comment on the various system, phenomena or situation from comparative perspective, from which the audience will read their own orientation, doctrines and theories.