The Rolls treatment
How can the government justify the money and pump over the new financial dispute court in the Rolls building when it is slashing legal aid and closing down local courts, asks Russell Conway
I popped into the new Rolls Building (pictured) the other day to see if it was as wonderful as described in recent publicity. There is something a little uncomfortable about the name and indeed the place. Rolls tends to go with Royce a bit like bacon and eggs. The feeling is that this is some sort of Premier league building with the rest of us mere mortals consigned to the rather Victorian (and worse) magistrates court and county court. I felt a bit like I did not belong there.
It is deeply unsettling and almost embarrassing as a practitioner to see our legal aid system being destroyed and £350m a year slashed from the legal aid budget and yet we are now apparently blessed with what is described as the largest specialist centre for the resolution of financial, business and property litigation any-where in the world. The question is: who will be using these facilities? And at who's expense?
I, for one, doubt whether it will be my clients. Large numbers of my clients are involved in possession proceedings in the county court or TOLATA proceedings in the divorce registry. We do sometimes deal with complex Chancery disputes but again they are farmed out to the chancery judge at the Central London County Court.
Indeed it is quite a while ago that I was last in the High Court. Albeit that the dispute I was involved with was complex, running to a trial bundle of 32 A4 ring binders and yet perfectly well handled in the old court building. That was a four-week trial with over 40 witnesses.
The Ministry of Justice seems to have found the money for the Rolls building. Quite where it has found it from one can only shudder to speculate. Are we funding the Rolls building out of the savings from legal aid? Now, that is a very scary thought indeed. Are we really putting together a luxurious trial centre to be used by Russian oligarchs, multi-million pound companies and billionaire property companies at the expense of public funding? It seems that the opening of the Rolls building was something of a low-key affair. I am not sure who opened it and what sort of party there was. Perhaps all those involved realised that the timing was nothing worse than catastrophic. The Ministry of Justice has already started a bit of positive PR by stating that there is no money left in the budget to give this new 'curvaceous' building any works of art. Apparently there are also other problems in the building in that there are only three lifts. The Russian oligarchs are apparently used to far more and perhaps they don't like sharing a lift with trainee solicitors and paralegals!
For those of us used to the privations of Willesden County Court where the roof needs repairing and the main office was recently flooded, slowing down matters still further, the idea of a wonderful new court building can be no more than a distant pipe dream. Some of us had felt that when West London County Court closed down we would have a new court building and indeed we did but sadly we have to share it with the magistrates court and clients going into West London County Court sometimes feel a bit like the criminals who occupy the larger part of the building. The building is over-run with police officers, probation officers and juveniles in their ubiquitous 'hoodies'. Is this really a 'Civil' Justice Centre? I doubt that the MOJ would have liked to have joined up the Rolls building with the Old Bailey. The 'Rolls Bailey' building does not quite have the same ring to it.
The court buildings that the vast majority using the courts have to occupy are old, out-dated and in need of much more than a coat of paint. It is sad that litigants in the most stressful position they will generally ever find themselves have to negotiate in out-dated corridors and cramped meeting rooms. Many have few or no refresh-ment facilities.
But what is saddest of all is that the Ministry of Justice at this time of recession and cash strapped misery can still find time to open up the Rolls building and hold it up as a shining example to the rest of the world. This at the same time as our legal aid system comes crashing down. I did not feel very comfortable visiting the Rolls building. It made me feel as though we have got our priorities all wrong and yes, you have guessed it: dogs are not allowed in!