Magistrates who have completed the relevant training will soon be
able to choose to enter and submit the results of
Single Justice cases directly onto our Common Platform case
management system.
They will have direct access to the relevant areas of the system,
and will be able to record their own decisions without needing to
wait for them to be entered by a court official. However, they
will still be advised and supported by a qualified legal
professional throughout each session.
This revised operating model follows a successful pilot in London
and the Midlands.
The benefits
Moving to this revised operating model will gradually increase
the number of cases which can be dealt with during each SJP
session.
It also means that legal advisers will have the capacity to deal
with other responsibilities during a session when their support
is not required by magistrates – although supporting magistrates
will be their primary focus within each session.
Types of cases included
Single Justice cases are already managed on Common Platform
throughout England and Wales for non-police prosecutors including
the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, Transport for London,
Merseyrail and TV Licensing. Magistrates will be able to record
their own decisions on all these types of cases under the new
model when it goes live.
It will also include SJP cases for additional train, bus and tram
operators as they are onboarded onto Common Platform.
We are currently running a pilot in the south-west looking at
traffic cases to see whether it would be appropriate to extend
this model in future to include police road traffic SJP cases.
Phased approach
We will follow a phased transition from 27 November 2023 onwards,
with a tailored schedule in each region for rolling out the new
process. Transition begins with a legal adviser working alongside
each magistrate – although this model will ultimately enable up
to three magistrates to work remotely with a single legal
adviser.
The rest of the process, and the way in which magistrates make
decisions about Single Justice cases, will remain unchanged.
