Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (“HMCTS”) has announced a pilot scheme to extend court sitting times at criminal and civil courts around the country.
This is not the first time that the government has explored this possibility. In May to September 2002 there was an extended sitting times pilot scheme in Manchester and London. Following this pilot scheme, Yvette Cooper, the then courts minister, announced; “In practice, the night courts proved prohibitively expensive although the early-morning sittings were more useful.” She said that in light of the qualified success of the pilot it had been decided by Trafford Magistrates’ Court to extend their early morning sessions to include early morning fines courts.
Extended sitting times have also been used in times of huge pressure on the criminal justice system, for example in August 2011, at the time of the London Riots, courts sat through the night to deal with the large number of cases.
The government has now announced a nationwide pilot for extended sitting times for a variety of courts. Under the pilot scheme, courts would sit from as early as 8am and rise as late as 8.30pm. It has been pointed out that this may mean that court users’ working days may start as early as 7am or end as late as 9pm. Crown Courts are to sit to 6pm, civil courts to 7pm, and magistrates’ courts until 8.30pm. The pilot is to be run in Newcastle Crown Court, Blackfriars Crown Court, Sheffield Magistrates’ Court, Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, Brentford Country Court, and Manchester Civil Justice Centre. It is due to last for six months. This is an issue which could potentially affect the whole profession, from criminal and family practitioners to civil practitioners; it will also affect both solicitors and barristers.
HMCTS have stated that this pilot is intended to improve access to justice for “everyone by making the service more convenient for working people.” It is said that the pilot is to enable HMCTS to understand how this would affect all court users and would be “fully evaluated before any decision is taken on rollout.” Nonetheless, those who practise in the pilot areas will have to decide how to handle the extended sitting hours almost immediately and for another six months.
This pilot comes in the wake of the closing of a fifth of all courts and tribunals by the government in 2016; the rationale at the time for these closures was that 48% of court buildings were empty at least half the time in 2015. The closures included a large number of magistrates’ courts (including, in London, magistrates’ courts in Feltham, Greenwich, and Tottenham).
The proposals for extended court sitting times have raised serious concern from almost all quarters of the profession. The Chairman of the Bar, Andrew Langdon QC, has said that the extended hours would be “almost impossible” for barristers with child-care responsibilities, and points out that the new sitting hours did not seem compatible with the government’s commitment to improving diversity at the bar and amongst the judiciary.
The president of the Law Society, Robert Bourns, has similarly warned that extended sitting hours could place undue extra pressure on criminal legal aid solicitors who already have to attend police stations at short notice, often at anti-social hours, and have experienced fees being reduced for many years. Bourns points out that “under this new government plan solicitors would be expected to attend court during unsocial hours for no uplift in pay.”
It is interesting that HMCTS has not considered the impact of extended court sitting hours on court users who have child-care responsibilities, nor has anything been said about the cost of extended sitting hours. There is also the matter of court staff, the judiciary, witnesses, jurors and the prison service (among a few) being willing and able to accommodate the extended hours.
An online petition started by Morwenna Macro, a commercial Chancery barrister, has garnered over 5,000 signatures against the proposal.
It does not seem that this scheme is destined for success. Extended sitting hours have never been successful long term in the past and they would depend on a wellspring of goodwill from all court users to make it workable; in the current climate, that seems unlikely. The scheme is being described as improving access to justice for those who work; while it may be that early morning fines courts are workable, it seems unlikely that the criminal justice system and all its cogs will be able to withstand this increase in court hours.
