The Courts Act 2003 (c.39) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom implementing many of the recommendations in Sir Robin Auld's (a Court of Appeal judge) Review of the Criminal Courts in England and Wales (also known as the "Auld Review"). The White Paper which preceded the Act was published by the Home Office on the 17 July 2002 and called "Justice for All".
The Act has nine parts:
- Maintenance of the court system
- Justices of the Peace
- Magistrates' Courts
- Court Security
- Inspectors of Court Administration
- Judges
- Procedure rules and practice directions
- Miscellaneous
- Final provisions (technical provisions)
The Act deals predominantly with criminal courts' administration, though certain sections deal with civil matters (notably creating a post of "Head of Civil Justice", enabling provisions for Family procedure rules, and amendments to its Civil procedure equivalent).
The Act also abolished Magistrates' Courts' Committees, combining the Magistrates' Courts' administration with the Court Service, which was then renamed Her Majesty's Courts Service. "Fines Officers" are instituted in order to strengthen the system for collecting fines after the existing system was criticised for relative ineffectiveness. Schedule 1 of the Act provided for the establishment of Courts Boards.
Famous quotes containing the words courts and/or act:
““With the gracious consent of the audience, you will be made to don the red tophat”Ma token phrase that the courts had evolved, whose true meaning was known to every schoolboy.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)