Justice for Some: The Regressive Effects of Increased Access to Small Claims Courts

Resumo: A judicialização das questões consumeristas atinge o Supremo Tribunal Federal por via dos juizados especiais há vários anos. Recentemente uma empresa do ramo de telefonia, a Oi, destacou-se pelo volume desproporcional de processos que levou ao tribunal. Ao analisar o perfil da litigância de direito do consumidor da Oi no Supremo, identificamos que a empresa envia o dobro de processos do segundo colocado no ranking de maiores litigantes, apesar de ter taxa de sucesso menor do que 0,07%. No contexto da necessidade de adequada proteção dos direitos do consumidor, esse comportamento pode ser caracterizado como bullying processual e demanda novas atitudes por parte dos órgãos reguladores e do próprio Supremo.Palavras-chave: Direito do consumidor. Judicialização. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Abstract: The consumer rights lawsuits have reached the Brazilian Supreme Court through small claims courts for years. Recently, one phone company, Oi, stood out for the disproportional number of appeals it took to the court. We found that Oi brought double the number of appeals of the second most frequent appellant in consumer rights at the Supreme Court, even though Oi’s success rate is lower than 0,07%. In the context of appropriate consumer rights protection, this behavior can be characterized as lawsuit bullying and calls for a new attitude by the regulating agencies and the Supreme Court itself.Keywords: Consumer rights. Lawsuits. Brazilian Supreme Court.

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Ukrainian-English Translation of Legal Terms: Case Study of Insignificant Cases and Small Claims

Access to Justice in Eastern Europe ◽

10.33327/ajee-18-4.1-n000055 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 232-242

Keyword(s):

English Translation ◽

Concept Analysis ◽

Civil Procedure ◽

Small Claim ◽

Legal Translation ◽

Small Claims ◽

Simplified Procedures ◽

Surface Similarity ◽

The Eu

The article is devoted to the problem of translating legal terms from Ukrainian into English on the basis of a case study of a newly-coined term in Ukrainian legislation – ‘maloznachna sprava’. The relevance of the topic of legal translation from English into Ukrainian and vice versa has become especially acute in light of the Ukraine-EU approximation agreement. The author emphasises the necessity to perform concept analysis between the terms in the EU and Ukraine simplified procedures and comes to the conclusion that despite having surface similarity to the EU term ‘small claim’, the Ukrainian term ‘maloznachna sprava’ is, in fact, a much wider concept. A range of translations of legal neologisms are described in the article, and the need to use a literal translation of the term is substantiated. As a result of the analysis of possible translation options and the ECtHR translation precedent, it is recommended that the term ‘maloznachna sprava’ should be translated as ‘insignificant case’ within the sphere of Ukrainian civil procedure. Keywords: legal translation, Ukrainian-English translation, small claim, insignificant case.

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Small Defamation Claims in Small Claims Jurisdictions: Worth Considering for the Sake of Proportionality?

University of New South Wales Law Journal ◽

10.53637/miat6116 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 (4) ◽

Author(s):

Kim Gould

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Online Communication ◽

Reform Process ◽

Access To Justice ◽

Ordinary People ◽

Reform Agenda ◽

Administration Of Justice ◽

Small Claims ◽

The Law ◽

Defamation Law

Online communication continues to pose challenges for the law and the administration of justice. One such challenge concerns its propensity to give rise to small defamation claims between ordinary people given the often-enormous costs of litigating defamation claims before the ordinary courts. This article promotes a reform agenda directed to meeting this challenge by (1) demonstrating the need for a proportionate means for resolving small defamation claims, having regard to access to justice considerations and other wider concerns; (2) establishing reasonable grounds for seriously considering deploying the traditional small-claims-proportionate response – small claims jurisdictions – for this purpose notwithstanding contraindications including the infamous complexity of defamation law; and (3) advancing a research pathway for the proportionate treatment of small defamation claims to guide decision-making and innovation. This article also advocates for consideration of this important issue in the ‘national reform process’ launched in 2018 for Australian defamation law.

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