Open consultation Legal Aid Remuneration for Cases Directly Committed to the Crown Court

Summary

This consultation is in relation to proposals for criminal legal aid fees for solicitors and barristers relating to the introduction of a new committal process, Direct Committal, which is part of the Committal Reform Programme. This reform represents a co-ordinated response across the criminal justice system and targets both procedural efficiency and human impact.

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)

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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 theJustice 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.