Ministry of Justice removes cap on how many days Crown courts can sit in bid to clear backlog of cases

The limit on sitting days at courts across the country have been lifted once again in a bid to clear the backlog of cases caused by Covid closures.

There is now no restriction on the number of days the Crown Court can sit for the new financial year.

The same ruling last year meant that nearly 17,000 more days were sat in the Crown Court than the year prior to the pandemic and the number of outstanding cases in the Crown Court has fallen by around 2,500 since its peak in June 2021.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The ruling, announced by the Ministry of Justice, is part of a raft of measures to ensure more trials can take place, delivering swifter justice for victims and reducing the backlog of cases which rose significantly due to the pandemic.

Rules on how many days per year Crown courts can sit has been lifted by the Ministry of Justice in a bid to clear backlog of cases caused by COVID.Rules on how many days per year Crown courts can sit has been lifted by the Ministry of Justice in a bid to clear backlog of cases caused by COVID.
Rules on how many days per year Crown courts can sit has been lifted by the Ministry of Justice in a bid to clear backlog of cases caused by COVID.

Despite COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing measures meaning some courtrooms had to temporarily close, over 98,500 days were sat in 2021/22 after the Ministry of Justice lifted the cap, compared to around 82,000 in 2019/20.

Read More
'Raising aspirations' key to breaking drug dealers' grip on Yorkshire town, MP c...

“Alongside the extension of Nightingale Courts, digital hearings and investing significantly in criminal legal aid, we are removing the limit on sitting days for a second year to boost capacity and help drive down the Crown Court backlog of cases.”

The Ministry of Justice has spent £250m so far on dealing with the impact of the pandemic and is investing nearly half a billion pounds (£477m) in the criminal justice system over the next three years which will help to tackle backlogs in courts and tribunals.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

More than 60 Crown courtrooms previously unavailable due to the pandemic have been reopened in the last year and 30 Nightingale courtrooms, originally commissioned to provide extra capacity for socially-distanced trials, will stay open until March 2023. This includes the one that was set up at Cloth Hall Court in Leeds city centre.

This means around 500 Crown courtrooms are now available for hearings and trials.

The latest measures are on top of others that were introduced since the start of the pandemic.

Some of these include:

increasing spending on criminal legal aid by £135m a year and including a fee increase which will see a typical criminal barrister earning nearly £7,000 extra per year; rolling out video technology to over 70 per cent of all courtrooms and opening 3,265 virtual court rooms across all jurisdictions - these currently hold around 13,600 hearings per week, compared to just a handful before the pandemic; investing almost £450m over the next three years into victim and support services; creating two ‘super courtrooms’ which can accommodate up to 12 defendants simultaneously in a bid to increase capacity for large, complex trials

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

There have also been other changes to legislation which includes doubling the sentencing powers available to magistrates from six months to a year to free up an estimated 1,700 extra sitting days of Crown Court time each year.

The statutory mandatory retirement age has been raised from 70 to 75 for judicial office holders, which it is expected will retain an extra 400 judges and tribunal members and 2,000 magistrates per year across all jurisdictions.