Who really runs our courts (and collects fines)?

The HMCTS executive agency model put under the "civilian auditor" spotlight

Building on my previous article on HM Courts and Tribunals Service as a “synthetic identity” that obscures liability for unlawful acts, I sent off a rather interesting Freedom of Information Act request today. When you get a notice in the post asking you to pay “HMCTS”, who exactly does the money go to, and does a legal non-person like HMCTS even have standing to ask for it?

I will give the technical details later in this post, but for now what matters is that we are “joining the dots” between:

• the use of “ghost courts” that conflate administrative areas with real courts of justice,

• “state brands” (TV Licensing, HMCTS, Central Ticket Office) as administrative legal fronts that cannot be sued (i.e. no justice) yet demand money and can be paid,

• and a break in the chain of judicial authority in administrative fine collection, as there is no lawful creditor.

The UK public assumes that when they attend a magistrates’ or crown court, they are entering a constitutionally independent court overseen by Crown officers. However, official government records reveal that this assumption is no longer true. In 2005, the government created Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS) as an executive agency of the Department for Constitutional Affairs (later the Ministry of Justice). In 2011, HMCS merged with the Tribunals Service to form HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), explicitly described in its own framework document as “an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice.”

The HMCTS Framework Document confirms:

• The Chief Executive answers to the Lord Chancellor (i.e. a cabinet-level political appointee), not to the Crown directly.

• HMCTS has a Board of Management, non‑executive directors, business plans, financial targets, and cost‑recovery models, just like a debt collection agency.

• Court staff are civil servants, not independent Crown officers.

This is a corporate‑style administrative model, fundamentally different from the historical model in which courts operated independently as guardians of the rule of law. It matters, because historically courts of record acted in the name of the Crown, with officers who were constitutionally independent from ministerial departments. Now, administrative staff employed by the MoJ handle day‑to‑day court operations, enforce fines, and issue correspondence — all under the HMCTS brand. Even the MoJ itself calls HMCTS “a delivery arm of the Ministry of Justice”, not an independent judicial service.

This blurring of lines between administration and judiciary raises serious constitutional questions. If HMCTS is not a legal person, can it lawfully act as a creditor for fines? Can it lawfully issue demands in its own name? When a court issues a fine it is payable to the crown with that court responsible for enforcement. If HMCTS is only an administrative arm, the creditor should be the Crown via a properly constituted court — not HMCTS itself. If the MoJ cannot answer clearly who the creditor is, then that is not a minor technical flaw: it is evidence of a systemic misrepresentation in the enforcement of fines (a.k.a. “fraud”, “malfeasance”, and “extortion”).

Here is the text of what I just sent to the Ministry of Justice:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am currently the subject of a live fine enforcement matter administered by the Lancashire & Cumbria Criminal Fines Collection and Enforcement Unit. In correspondence dated 23 and 31 July 2025, that Unit confirmed in writing it is:

“…a payment unit only… acting upon the direction of the Court… [and] not empowered to address matters concerning jurisdiction…”

This admission raises an important question of wider public interest: who is the lawful creditor for fine payments demanded in the name of “His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service” (HMCTS), and what statutory authority underpins HMCTS’s presentation as payee, given its acknowledged lack of separate legal personality under UK law.

Accordingly, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following recorded information:

1. Bank account legal identity

a) The full legal name of the account holder into which cheques made payable to “HMCTS” for court fines, penalties, or enforcement actions are deposited.

b) Whether this account is held in the name of HMCTS, the Ministry of Justice, HM Treasury, a magistrates’ court, or another legal person.

2. Statutory authority

a) The specific statutory provision(s) — including Act, section, and (if applicable) statutory instrument — that confer lawful authority for “HMCTS” to:

• Be named as the payee for fines or enforcement payments;

• Receive, bank, and/or process such funds in its own name;

• Act as the collecting authority for fines imposed by magistrates’ courts or other courts.

b) If such authority does not lie with HMCTS itself, please identify the statutory basis for the entity that is the creditor.

3. Delegations of authority

a) Any written instrument(s) of delegation granting HMCTS or its staff the authority to collect fines, including the statutory provision enabling such delegation.

b) Any internal MoJ or HMCTS guidance or policy documents on naming “HMCTS” as the payee in fine demands or enforcement notices.

4. Accounting treatment (Financial Year 2024–2025)

a) For sums paid to “HMCTS” for fines in the financial year 2024–2025, how are these recorded in government accounts — specifically, whether they are recorded as:

• Income of HMCTS;

• Income of the Ministry of Justice;

• Income of HM Treasury’s Consolidated Fund;

• Income of another entity.

b) I seek recorded information only, including but not limited to:

• The HMCTS Trust Statement;

• The MoJ Annual Report and Accounts;

• Relevant statutory citations;

• Internal guidance on accounting for fines paid to “HMCTS”.

Format and scope

• This request is for recorded information only.

• If any part of the information is withheld, please cite the specific FOIA exemption(s) and explain why they apply, as required by s.17 FOIA.

Public interest

Clarity in creditor identity is essential under common law for valid enforcement notices and supports transparency in court fine enforcement, consistent with Article 6 ECHR (right to a fair trial). The public has a legitimate interest in knowing which legal entity is lawfully entitled to receive fine payments demanded in the name of HMCTS.

Yours faithfully,
Martin Geddes

Once you see one simulation of legitimate authority, you tend to look for more of them, and I keep finding them! The same patterns repeat, such as with councils impersonating courts for the issue of council tax summonses. These are not minor wrinkles in the running of the state, but fundamental breaches of the rule of law. The experience of the last few years has shifted our relationship with the state. Before Covid, most people assumed the justice system was “basically sound” with some flaws. Now, after years of opaque emergency powers and administrative overreach, the default assumption for many is that state power must be audited at every turn.

This is why many of my articles are headlined with Covid-era protest photos. I no longer presume that the state exercises lawful authority just because it says so: I want proof, every single time. If the state cannot answer a basic question about the legal foundation for extracting money from its citizens, it risks being seen as belligerent and illegitimate. If this FOIA query is dismissed, ignored, or partially answered — that tells us all we needed to know. That we need to ask at all is an indictment of the loss of trust. I am having to go to Judicial Review merely to extract the actual order from a court for a supposed criminal conviction. This is “total breakdown” territory.

For people inside the system reading this, I acknowledge your discomfort. There are likely divisions between the hardline authoritarians, the compromising pragmatists, and the constitutional purists. There are moments when we need all three: in the face of an enemy, the raw exercise of power, regardless of theoretical limits, can be a survival plan. But the people are the source of the state’s legitimacy and exercise of sovereignty, so by definition cannot be its enemy. If you have to resort to subterfuge in the administration of criminal courts and collecting fines, then you have relinquished all claim to acting on behalf of the people. This civilian audit isn’t meant to be destructive; the poison of false authority is the system’s to own.

I will let y’all know if and when I get a response.