Sabrina Lawlor

The Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunal Service (NICTS) has just closed a consultation on a proposed nine per cent increase in civil court fees, spread over three years.

The majority of court fees were raised by nine per cent in November 2023 and by a further nine per cent in October 2024 in response to inflationary pressures.

NICTS is proposing to increase court fees by a further five per cent from 1 April 2026, and then by a further two per cent in both of the two following years.

In future, NICTS intends that inflationary uplifts should take effect on a three-year rolling cycle, with the next consultation in 2028.

The proposed increases are intended to help NICTS achieve full cost recovery in respect of civil and family court services from the fees charged. At present, the cost recovery rate is currently less than 80 per cent.

However, Sabrina Lawlor, APIL’s Northern Ireland representative, said: “Access to the justice system should not depend on whether you can afford to issue court proceedings or not.

“Courts should be funded primarily through taxes, and people who need to use them could make an affordable contribution towards the service they use.”

She continued: “The civil courts are a vital public service which benefits all of society — not just those who have to turn to them for help in their hour of need. Without justice through the courts, for example, injured people must turn to the state for support while negligent wrongdoers escape accountability. 

“Anyone can become a victim of a negligent employer or a reckless driver. People who suffer needless injuries must have access to the civil justice system to get the redress they need to put their lives back on track.”

In its response to a NICTS consultation on the proposals, APIL said it is also concerned that county court ‘scale fees’ — the fixed amounts courts can order a losing party to pay the winning one for their legal expenses — have significantly lagged behind inflation.

“The failure to review scale costs has left many law firms chronically underfunded during a period of extraordinary inflationary pressure,” Ms Lawlor said.

“Firms representing victims of negligence often have to pay the initial costs of pursuing a case, such as the court fees and medical expert fees, upfront.

“The combination of inadequate scale costs and rising court fees has a significant impact on a firm’s ability to do this. It’s a double hit on legal professionals and the vulnerable people they represent.

“If solicitors are not properly remunerated for the work they do to progress cases to trial, and court fees are set at higher and higher levels, there’s a real danger some will be forced to decline taking on more complex cases due to the expense of funding these types of cases.

“It means seriously injured people face being denied the redress to which they are entitled by law.”