Hong Kong's legal system appears to be failing the all-important business sector as waiting periods for cases to be heard continue to lengthen despite efforts to increase capacity.
Although many cases have been shifted to the District Court after its financial jurisdiction was raised to HK$600,000, a surge in bankruptcy petitions has kept the High Court caseload fairly static. Last year, the High Court handled 32,609 civil cases. The figure is expected to reach 33,300 this year.
The average waiting time between a request for a court date and the actual hearing is 216 days in the civil court, although time spent on preliminary matters means that the average litigant will have to wait for about 400 days to have a case heard.
A recent paper on civil justice reform said the number of judges in Hong Kong had not changed significantly in the past decade despite sharp increases in workload.
The latest attempt to alleviate the situation involves farming out judicial work to the private sector. A pool of solicitors and barristers in private practice who can sit as temporary Masters - a rank of judge - is being drawn up by the Judiciary. About 20 lawyers are expected to be on standby.
Law Society Secretary-General Patrick Moss said: "I think it's a good move because it's always nice to let the gamekeeper find out how the poacher works. All the people bring in a depth of experience . . . and may appreciate the difficulties of practitioners."
The caseload of the High Court has increased 82% since 1991, so that judges have thus had to cope with higher pressure and bigger workloads. The panel of Masters will deal with work in the High Court that encompasses summary judgments, where a case is instantly disposed of, and interlocutory applications, ie technical queries that don't require a court hearing as such. They will also dealing with so-called 'taxation', meaning the scrutiny of legal bills to allocate costs between litigants.
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