g the mind; má aba anti
required call for a high degree of skill (and help in developing it) by carefully selected Adjudicators. I advise that the Tribunal will be
more effective and more efficient if the Tribunal Officers have purely administrative functions leaving it to the
to the Adjudicators themselves always to conduct any proceedings in which the parties are brought together whether for trial or preparatory hearing or other pre-trial meeting. The aim should be that the parties do not attend more than once. It may be that more should be done to foster the interests of the litigant in person
distinct from the corporate or institutionalised litigant.
44.
as
There should be provision for studies of small claims within the proposed system of Judicial Studies.
45.
Court.
The current jurisdiction is $8,000. Many citizens would not think it worthwhile to pursue a claim for $15,000 in the District For that reason and in the light of my arguments about grade-drift I recommend increasing the monetary limit to that amount. A recent survey over six months shows that an increase to $15,000 would have brought 1,298 claims into the Small Claims jurisdiction (2,197 if the rise were to $25,000). I do not recommend that any other type of case such as Employment Compensation should be transferred to the Small Claims Tribunal.
46.
•
Herger of Criminal Courts
Another radical suggestion is that the criminal jurisdiction of the High Court and the District Court be merged and taken in a single new criminal court. (In a modification of this proposal the upper work of the Magistracy is taken into an enlarged court as in the proposal for an enlarged District Court discussed earlier in this Chapter.) Criminal business would thus be divided in two, namely indictable or serious crime and summary or minor crime, instead of three as at present. There might be four classes of case in the (upper) criminal court as in the Crown Court in England and Wales.
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