As part of the assault on the constitutional rights of personal injury victims, the Minister for Justice etc. procured the making of a requirement, of such victims, that they write a letter to the person guilty of inflicting the injury within two months of that infliction. That requirement is found in Section 8 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004.

A failure to write the letter within the time may lead to the victim failing to recover legal costs against the wrongdoer, depending on what the judge in the case thinks.

Lawyers have a good word to describe such a provision; that word is “calculated”. The provision is calculated to have considerable downside for the innocent victim, even if it is never put to the test.

Who will feel sufficiently brave to fight to the last ditch, knowing that the letter was not written and that the judge is an unknown quantity?

In short the victim’s morale will be sapped.

That was what the Minister intended.