# The Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2003, Note: Explanatory note


(This note is not part of the Rules)
The amendment of section 51(2) of the Supreme Court Act 1981 on the entry into force of section 31 of the Access to Justice Act 1999 allows rules of court to be made “for securing that the amount awarded to a party in respect of the costs to be paid by him to [legal or other] representatives is not limited to what would have been payable by him to them if he had not been awarded costs”—in other words, rules which limit or regulate the so-called indemnity principle.
The Lord Chancellor has made amendments to the Conditional Fee Agreements Regulations 2000 and the Collective Conditional Fee Agreements Regulations 2000 which, when combined with the amendment to rule 43.2 of the Civil Procedure Rules made by rule 5(b) of these Rules, will abrogate the indemnity principle in relation to the type of conditional fee agreement governed by the amended Regulations. Solicitors will to this extent be able to agree lawfully with their clients not to seek to recover by way of costs anything in excess of what the court awards, or what it is agreed will be paid, and will no longer be prevented from openly contracting with their clients on such terms. The new CPR rule 43.2(3) and (4) provides that costs whose recovery is limited in this way are nevertheless recoverable costs for the purposes of CPR Parts 44 to 48.
The opportunity has been taken to make other minor amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules. An amendment is made to CPR rule 2.1 to make it clear that the Civil Procedure Rules do not apply directly to election petitions in the High Court (although they apply indirectly and with modifications by virtue of rule 2(4) of the Election Petition Rules 1960 and rule 2(3) of the European Parliamentary Election Petition Rules 1979).
The amendment of rule 3.7 ensures that where a claim is struck out for non-payment of a fee and the claimant applies to have the claim reinstated, the time allowed for payment of the fee does not expire before he has an opportunity to pay it.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/1242/note (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/civil-procedure-amendment-no-2-rules-2003/note
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.