Justin Rushbrooke argues that the manner in which the last government sought to reduce success fees in defamation cases was ill conceived. The irony is, he says, had a more moderate approach been adopted, meaningful reform would have been possible
The Conditional Fee Agreements (Amendment) Order 2010, which sought to reduce the maximum “uplift” in defamation and privacy cases from 100 per cent to 10 per cent, had a short and inglorious life. It was ill-considered, rushed through with unseemly haste by the former Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, and his colleagues; and, in the end, counter-productive. As with much of the debate that surrounds media law issues, it was bedevilled by ignorance, exaggeration and muddled thinking. The irony is that had Mr Straw adopted a more moderate approach to what was, on his own account, only supposed to be an interim measure, he would have been able to achieve meaningful reform of a kind that nearly everyone agreed was warranted. But the manner in which it was handled cannot help but give rise to a suspicion that, with a general election looming and a government in need of friends in the media, appearance always mattered more than substance.