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Written question asked by Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru) on Monday, 2 March 2015, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 4 March 2015. It was answered by Shailesh Vara (Conservative) on Monday, 9 March 2015 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Civil Proceedings

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applications for redress to civil or family courts during each of the last five years were deemed to be vexatious.

Answer

Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) does not record the number of applications to the civil and family courts which are deemed to be vexatious. However, HMCTS does record the number of ‘totally without merit’ orders that are made following an application being deemed as totally without merit. The data provided in this answer relates to orders made when applications are deemed to be totally without merit.

HMCTS maintains a national database which lists all civil and family totally without merit orders. The retention period for entries on the database is three years and therefore only data relating to this period is set out in the table below. In addition, the orders may relate to multiple applications and therefore the volume of orders will not necessarily represent the number of applications received by HMCTS.

Table One: Totally without merit orders made in the last three years[1]

Time period

Number of Totally Without Merit Orders made

1 March 2012 – 28 February 2013

2080

1 March 2013 – 28 February 2014

3004

1 March 2014 – 28 February 2015

1495

HMCTS does not record the number of victims that have reported vexatious applications or the nature of proceedings, including whether they relate to stalking or harassment. In order to provide the information HMCTS would have to manually review each file that relates to stalking and harassment claims. This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.


[1] This data is internal HMCTS management information and it is not subject to the same level of checking as Official Statistics.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
225848
Session
2014-15
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Civil proceedings
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk