Legal Aid Remuneration for Cases Directly Committed to the Crown Court
Summary
This consultation addresses proposals for new criminal legal aid fees for solicitors and barristers due to the introduction of a committal process known as Direct Committal. This reform aims to enhance procedural efficiency and improve the experience for victims and witnesses while ensuring fairness for defendants.
Full description
Consultation description
The key objectives of Committal Reform are to speed up justice, simplify the committal process, improve victims and witnesses’ experiences while maintaining fairness for defendants. This involves reducing unnecessary delays and therefore expediting cases, making efficiencies in court processes, and therefore reducing costs.
These proposals follow the Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 and Criminal Justice (Committal Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 which were implemented to streamline the committal process. Direct Committal aims to speed up justice by removing the committal process which takes place in the magistrates’ court, initially for the most serious offences.
Documents
- Consultation document - Microsoft Word (125 KB)
- Equality screening document - Adobe PDF (258 KB)
- Rural needs impact assessment - Adobe PDF (266 KB)
- Regulatory impact assessment - Microsoft Word (32 KB)