11/05/2007

Need to expand role of Small Claims Tribunal

There are many people who need to seek justice for minor cases and small sum of money owed by their debtors. At the moment many of these cases were excluded from the SCT. Many of the creditors have documents to prove the debt but for all the exclusions, these cases cannot be heard by the SCT. There is a need to provide some forms of justice and redress for the small people. Not many can afford to feed the legal attorneys with year end holidays around the world or buy another bungalow. It is unfair to expect the small people to cough out tens of thousands of dollars to claim for a debt of $10k to $20k without any guarantee of getting a cent back. And the cost of making the other party pay or facing bankruptcy is so prohibitive that many of the debtors would walk away laughing. This is injustice to the party that is being wrong. Expanding the services of the SCT would also create more job opportunities for our people.

3 comments:

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

I've always believed in private competing courts. The reason the cost of justice is so HIGH, is because The State has a MONOPOLY on the production and distribution of "justice services", with no competition to give the state an incentive to keep costs down.

Since costs are allowed to rise, the poor customer gets shafted with the increases, without any means to recourse.

Supposing the courts do a bad job and you, the claimant—perfectly in the right LOSES the case or bales out because of the EXPENSE. Therefore as far as you are concerned, justice hasn't been served.

In a private system, you could sue the court responsible for "bad judgement". In a one-system State Monopoly, just try suing the single justice court system, and see how far you get, and see how much you will bleed.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

in the same line of thought, maybe it will be a good idea to have a parallel private court sytem for minor non criminal cases like biz and commericial matters.

privatise them, yes, and give the small guys a chance for justice.

Anonymous said...

It is vital that the justice system of any country should be independent from politics. No political party of any country should control the justice system.