Vos: OPRC will bring coherence to online dispute resolution
The Online Procedure Rule Committee (OPRC) has launched its first public consultation, on an inclusion framework and pre-action model that would set standards for digital services.
While they will not be compulsory for private providers, the OPRC said compliance “may in due course be made a formal requirement” for public procurement, listing on public platforms or API access to HM Courts and Tribunals (HMCTS) services.
The OPRC said the consultation “marks an important milestone – not only for the committee, but for all those committed to strengthening access to justice across civil, family, and tribunal proceedings”.
The OPRC’s role is to oversee the development of rules for online proceedings across the civil, family and tribunals jurisdictions, and also set optional data and behavioural standards for pre-action online dispute resolution services.
In his foreword, Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls and chair of the OPRC, said: “The digital justice system is not a new costly digital infrastructure to resolve everyone’s business, financial, family and consumer disputes online in one place.
“It will build on and connect all the existing provisions for pre-action online dispute-resolution and advice services and online court and tribunal dispute resolution.”
Sir Geoffrey said the OPRC would provide the rules and guidance needed to integrate existing online provisions, such as ombudsman portals or the Official Injury Portal, “so as to allow individuals and businesses to find the right advice and the right dispute-resolution mechanism quickly and efficiently”.
“This will be an iterative task by which the OPRC aims to create coherence in what is already a broad ecosystem of online dispute-resolution services.”
The consultation said the OPRC’s vision for the new digital justice system was that it should be “accessible to everyone, easier for everyone to use, capable of delivering justice more quickly and transparent and trusted”.
While online and digital justice services offered “transformative potential”, they also risked reinforcing old barriers or creating new ones. “Digital inclusion is one of the OPRC’s primary concerns,” it said.
The inclusion framework sets out “the principles, standards and mechanisms necessary to ensure that the requirement is recognised from the outset in the design and implementation of the proposed procedural rules and guidance”.
Key features include user-centred design, plain language and robust data collection to measure inclusion outcomes.
The pre-action model is intended to apply to all online, digital and hybrid services under the jurisdiction of the OPRC.
It aims to encourage providers to adopt and follow principles and standards in the pre-action space “that are consistent with those applied to online court-based dispute resolution”.
It includes principles for user conduct and provider responsibilities, such as transparency, accessibility, data privacy, and referral protocols. It also proposes technical and data standards to to make sure the whole system links up.
Whilst inclusion standards for private providers were “not directly enforceable through statutory powers of the OPRC”, compliance “may in due course be made a condition of procurement, inclusion in published lists or API access”.
The OPRC said: “This would enable a form of influence to ensure that all services contributing to the justice journey uphold principles of fairness, transparency, and accessibility.”
There would be a range of benefits in private providers meeting them standards, “such as gaining customer trust, inclusion in published lists of participants, and being able to “access and exchange data in structured formats”.
The OPRC forewarned that compliance “may in due course be made a formal requirement, for example as a condition of procurement, services listing” or API access to HMCTS services.
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