Last year, the Crown Court sat for an extra 17,000 cases (about 98,500 days compared to 82,000 in 2019/20). The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is also keeping 30 Nightingale courtrooms open until March 2023.
The Crown Court backlog stands at about 60,000, and the MoJ aims to reduce the backlog to 53,000 by March 2025.
In a report published this week, Court Capacity, however, the House of Commons Justice Committee said the government needs to set out how many trials must take place each month and set out a ‘detailed roadmap of how the necessary increase in capacity will be secured’, if it is to achieve this target.
The committee said the MoJ’s decision to reduce the number of Crown Court sitting days in 2019 was ‘a mistake and should serve as a lesson’ for future decision making.
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