Birss: Users will not notice much change
Creation of the Business and Property Division (BPD) next month will provide a larger pool of judges and “opportunities to look at how we do things”, its first president has said.
Sir Colin Birss, the current Chancellor of the High Court, will only be the president of the BPD for a month, however, as he succeeds Sir Geoffrey Vos as Master of the Rolls in November.
The Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, unveiled the new division in June [1]. It replaces the Chancery Division and unifies the group of specialist civil courts which handle high-value, complex and often international litigation.
In a speech this week to the Chancery Bar Association – which need not change its name, he said – Sir Colin explained that despite the creation of the Business & Property Courts in 2017, “the split administrative structure created some unnecessary complexity for court users”, while cross-deployment between the different parts of the BPCs and between divisions in general, “while possible in theory, was very limited in practice”.
It needed a new name because, “if you bring the Commercial Court, Admiralty Court and [Technology & Construction Court] into the same division as the existing courts and lists in Chancery, you cannot call that division the ‘Chancery’ Division, because whatever the word ‘chancery’ means, it is not that.”
The courts and lists will retain their existing names in the rules, however.
Sir Colin outlined the work that has been going on behind the scenes, such as changing forms, seals court guides and the CE File system.
“Apart from the name changes, users will notice little change in the ways of working,” he went on.
The new division will have a larger pool of judges and this “allows for work to be done more efficiently. The changes will also improve coherence of our court arrangements and clarity about where to bring cases”.
Longer term, he said, “this change provides us with opportunities to look at how we do things”.
“For example, I can see a case for a radical streamlining of the court guides applicable in the Business and Property Division. I can also see a case for looking again at how we do out-of-hours work and perhaps vacation work too.
“The challenges of new technology – two obvious examples being digital assets and AI – will apply across the whole of the BPD – including the BPCs outside London. For example, today the BPCs in Manchester are doing great work on cases involving digital assets. Our response to these new challenges in this area should be based on the division as a whole.
“I also look forward to much great cross-deployment into and out of the BPD. Over time, more Rolls Building judges will have experience of work outside the Rolls Building than they do today, and vice versa.”
Judges of the future should not simply be specialists, Sir Colin stressed. “We will need a mix of specialist skills and general perspectives. That is something this new arrangement will facilitate.”