Civil and Criminal Procedure and Case Management
This domain tests procedural fluency: the sequence of a civil or criminal case, the consequences of non-compliance, and the case-management decisions that keep a matter on the rails. Questions are usually about what to do next, within what time, and with what sanction if you do not.
Civil track
- Commencement, service, defence, case-management conference, disclosure, expert evidence, trial.
- The overriding objective and proportionality govern every procedural and costs decision.
- Costs sanctions follow non-compliance; the relief-from-sanctions analysis asks whether the breach was serious or significant, whether there is a good reason for it, and then weighs all the circumstances of the case.
- Know the routes to default judgment, summary judgment and strike-out, and how each differs.
Criminal track
- Charge, first appearance, bail, allocation or transfer, disclosure of unused material, plea and case management hearing, trial.
- Bail turns on the statutory grounds: flight risk, interference with witnesses, further offending, and the interests of justice.
- Applications you must recognise: abuse of process, severance, bad character, hearsay, special measures.
- Custody time limits run to a clock; diarise them.
Case management
Identify the real issues at the first opportunity to limit the evidence and the hearing length. Comply with directions; where compliance is impossible, apply to vary promptly rather than explaining afterwards. Ambush is the enemy of a managed case.
Worked example
Disclosure is served three days late. Relief from sanctions: the breach is significant, though short. Counsel's oversight is generally not a good reason. Weighing all the circumstances - the other side is not prejudiced, the trial date is untouched, and the defaulting party remedied the breach the same day it was identified - relief is likely granted, with costs against the applicant. Note the structure: concession, reason, circumstances, proportionate order.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating any delay as automatically fatal, or any breach as harmless.
- Confusing directions orders with peremptory orders.
- Applying civil disclosure concepts to criminal unused material.
- Missing a custody time limit or a limitation date.
- Seeking an adjournment instead of a prompt application to vary.