The Pre-action Protocols are a Significant Procedural Aspect of the English Civil Justice System but Reform is Required: Jet2 Holidays Limited v Hughes and another [2019] EWCA Civ 1858

This note considers the recent landmark decision of Jet2 Holidays Limited v Hughes and another in which the Court of Appeal confirmed the courts’ jurisdiction to commit for contempt of court

in respect of false witness statements made in purported compliance with a pre-action protocol. Further integration of the protocols with the Civil Procedure Rules has,

however, rendered artificial the formal divide between the two procedural regimes. It is argued that there is a clear need to review and streamline the protocols so as to reduce their

overly prescriptive content. The aim should be to revise them so that they retain no more than their essential procedural elements, similar to the general pre-action protocol. Such an

approach would reduce the risk of frontloading of costs, preserve the Woolfian aims of promoting early settlement and efficient judicial case management, and would, consequently, better serve the principle of proportionality.