From 1 July 2014 changes have been introduced to the District
Court claims process. The changes reverse many reforms introduced
in 2009 which have proven to be unsuccessful. We have returned to a
position where there is close alignment between the processes in
the District and High Courts. This is a welcome development to the
legal profession and other users of the District Court.
Out with the forms
Under the 2009 reforms any party making a claim in the District
Court was to fill out plain English forms. These included the Form
2 Notice of claim, Form 3 Response by Defendant,
and the Information Capsule. An objective in introducing
the forms was to provide guidance to non-lawyers preparing their
own court documents. Though the forms were supposed to be in plain
English they were largely incomprehensible and making sense of them
proved to be overwhelming even for some lawyers.
