KEEP POSTED ON IMMANENT REFORM

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In February 2013 I explained why our national law in this area was defective and why it does not comply with European Law in a four-part series of New Law Journal articles, On the Right Road?; part 2; part 3 and part 4.  See also my article Minor Collision, why children can be hardest hit in APIL’s PI Focus, May 2014. 

I was the first to report on the recent ruling in Delaney v Secretary of State for Transport 2014 EWHC 1785 (QB), (see also my article in the Journal of Personal Injury Law, A World Turned Upside Down) in which Mr Justice Jay held that the minister was liable for a serious breach of European law that had wrongly denied an accident victim his proper compensatory entitlement.  

I was also the first to provide comment and analysis,  in this blog, of the European Court of Justice’s landmark decision in Damijan Vnuk (Case C-162/13), Vnuk Ruling: RTA 1988 Breaches EU law.  To date this is the only analysis of this ruling.  The Vnuk decision exposes the DfT to yet further judicial scrutiny for failing to implement European law minimum standards properly.

The Department for Transport's is responsible for the national law provision for ensuring that motor accident victims' compensatory entitlement is properly safeguarded.  Unfortunately it is in a state of shambles.  

Call for reform

The minister chose to do nothing after initiating a deeply flawed and badly informed consultation on revising the Uninsured and Untraced Drivers Agreement and on being informed of the numerous defects in our national law implementation of the European Directives on motor insurance, that was back in late February 2013.  Now, 19 months on, he may have no choice in the matter.  If he fails to fulfil his constitutional duty to initiate reform, he may well find that others will do this for him.