The Civil Justice Council (CJC), an Advisory Public Body established under the Civil Procedure Act 1997, has responsibility for overseeing and co-ordinating the modernisation of the civil justice system. The CJC has issued (21 February 2008) a consultation on the introduction of a General Pre-Action Protocol to the Civil Procedure Rules (England & Wales). RICS is intending to submit a corporate response to the consultation – RICS members with an interest are therefore invited to respond to RICS on the consultation (see below).

The General Pre-Action Protocol would be an addition to the nine other Pre-Action Protocols in existence and is therefore intended to apply to any dispute except the following (covered by the extant Protocols): construction and engineering; housing disrepair; repossession because of rent arrears; personal injury; clinical negligence; defamation; judicial review; disease and illness. By way of general background, Pre-Action Protocols have as their purposes:

a) to focus the attention of litigants on the desirability of resolving disputes without litigation
b) to enable then to obtain information they reasonably need in order to enter an appropriate settlement
c) to make an appropriate offer (of a kind which can have costs consequences if litigation ensues)
d) if pre-action settlement is not achievable, to lay the groundwork for the expeditious conduct of proceedings. Failure to comply with a Protocol can lead to a party involved in a dispute being penalised in some way by the court.

RICS invites members to submit a response to the nine consultation questions no later than 7 May 2008; the main consultation paper (including details of how to respond) and three accompanying annexes are available to download to the right of this page.