Eastbourne County Court

The Department for Constitutional Affairs aims to "provide effective and accessible justice for all", and to "ensure people's rights". The Court Service is an executive agency of that Department. "The purpose of the Court Service is the delivery of justice." The Agency is presumably responsible for the running of Eastbourne County Court, and "provides the necessary services to the judiciary and court users to ensure its impartial and efficient operation." Or so they say. My experience of the court is far otherwise.

I had to resort to using this court myself after two solicitors had failed in eight months to regain possession of the end of my back garden for me from a neighbour called Smith who had fenced off part of my garden with barbed wire and had thrown a fence post at me. The first solicitor did not in six weeks succeed in sending Smith a letter, and the second said that I could not take Smith to court because "the judge wouldn't like it". How true that observation has proved! The judge most certainly does not like it.

In Smith's case I eventually repossessed the bottom of my garden by direct action, but resorted to the court myself when my rights were infringed by other neighbours.

Running counter to the published aims I referred to in the first paragraph, there seem to be other aims at work: justice seems less important than protocol, and of course it is preferable if the law is left to lawyers, no matter how incompetent, rather than allow the public a fair hearing.

(to be continued)

Open letter to the Lord Chancellor