By Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent From The Guardian UK

Justice select committee condemns big rises in charges for divorce, employment or asylum cases as unjustified

Excessive court fees impose an unjustified tax on divorce, deny refugees the opportunity to establish asylum rights and prevent employees with legitimate grievances from obtaining justice, a report by a Conservative-dominated select committee has concluded.

The justice select committee called for some charges to be rescinded as it dismissed “superficial” government excuses for failing to provide evidence to justify successive steep rises.

The parliamentary group acknowledged that Ministry of Justice finances had not been ringfenced from austerity but warned that access to justice must be prevail over “cost recovery”.

The scathing comments from the committee, chaired by the Conservative former barrister Bob Neill, reflect fears within the legal profession that access to justice is in danger of being restricted to the wealthy and that commercial litigants will be deterred from bringing cases to UK courts.

In recent years the department has levied more “enhanced” fees – greater than the cost of the hearing involved – in order to cross-subsidise the legal system. The main rises have been:

• Employment tribunal fees of up to £1,200 introduced in 2013, which led to a 70% drop in the number of cases being brought.

• Fees for financial claims for sums over £300,000 going up five-fold last year, from £1,920 to £10,000. A plan to double that level to £20,000 has temporarily been shelved.

• The price of a divorce going from £410 to £550 – although the average cost of uncontested proceedings is estimated to be only £270.

The MoJ is also considering increases of 600% for asylum and immigration tribunal fees. Applications for decisions on papers will rise from for £80 to £490 and for oral hearings from £140 to £800.

The committee’s report says: “The introduction of fees set at a level to recover or exceed the full cost of operation of the court requires particular care and strong justification. Where there is conflict between the objectives of achieving cost recovery and preserving access to justice, the latter objective must prevail.”

On divorce fees, the MPs state that the latest increase, “which is approximately double the cost to the courts of providing the service, is unjustified”. They add: “It cannot be right that a person bringing a divorce petition, in most cases a woman, is subject to what has been characterised in evidence to us as effectively a divorce tax. We recommend that the increase in the divorce petition fee to £550 be rescinded.”

On employment fees, the report describes the justice minister Shailesh Vara’s “heavy reliance on the figure of 83,000 cases dealt with at Acas early conciliation to support his contention that access to justice has not been adversely affected by employment tribunal fees [as], even on the most favourable construction, superficial.”

If the six-fold increase in asylum and immigrations fees goes ahead, the report says, “there is a danger that they will deny vulnerable people the means to challenge the lawfulness of decisions taken by the state about their … status.”

The select committee says there have been inconsistencies in the government’s account of its review of the impact of employment tribunal fees. The report adds: “It is difficult to see how a minister can urge his officials to progress a review which they apparently submitted to him four months or more previously.”

The report has still not been published. The MPs add: “There is a troubling contrast between the speed with which the government has brought forward successive proposals for higher fees, and its tardiness in completing an assessment of the impact of the most controversial change it has made.

“We find it unacceptable that the government has not reported the results of its review one year after it began and six months after the government said it would be completed.”

The select committee report does not object to the principle of charging fees to court users, since “some degree of financial risk is an important discipline for those considering legal action.”

Neill said: “We understand the financial pressures on ministers in a department with unprotected spending. We also understand that the MoJ does not always have the luxury to be as rigorous and meticulous in preparing the ground for controversial policies as it might wish. But it is important that in such circumstances the ministry is frank about that fact and does not represent the quality of its evidence base to be higher than it is.

“The MoJ has argued that changes to employment law and the improving economic situation, as well as the pre-existing downward trend in the number of employment tribunal cases being brought, may account for part of the reduction in the number of cases. These may indeed be facts but the timing and scale of the reduction following immediately from the introduction of fees can leave no doubt that the clear majority of the decline is attributable to fees.”

Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said: “People are being priced out of challenging employers that dismiss them unfairly, discriminate against them or withhold wages.

“Four in five people who we help with problems at work would be put off making a claim to an employment tribunal because of high fees. Many people would have to save for six months to afford fees of £1,200, and for some people the fees are higher than the amount they are claiming.

“The justice select committee is right to highlight that at their current level employment tribunal fees put access to justice at risk. The Government should use this opportunity to consider how they can make employment tribunals a more affordable option.”

IMAGE: Barrister’s wig Court fees equal a tax on divorce, committee has said. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

For more on this story go to: http://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/jun/20/ministry-of-justice-urged-to-scrap-excessive-court-fees?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=178157&subid=11926420&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2