UK lifts cap on court days for second year in a row to cut Crown Court backlog
The UK government has lifted the cap on the number of days Crown Courts are allowed to sit for the second year in a row, as it struggles in its efforts to cut the Crown Court backlog.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said there will be no limit on the number of days judges are allowed to sit in Crown Courts.
The decision to lift the cap comes after the same policy saw judges sit for an extra 17,000 days last year, compared to before the pandemic.
Each year, the Crown Court cap is decided on the back of MoJ forecasts, as to how many days are needed to deal with the number of cases expected to come into the court system.
The UK’s Crown Court backlog almost doubled during the pandemic, as waiting times for Crown Court trials increased from to highs of 449 days from just more than 200 days before Covid.
As of February, 58,450 cases were waiting to be heard in Crown Court, while 374,449 cases were waiting to be heard by magistrates.
Justice secretary Dominic Raab said: “Getting the courts backlog down is a key priority for this Government so that we can ensure victims get the swift access to justice they deserve.”
The policy comes after the Law Society hit out at the government over its efforts to cut the Crown Court backlog, as it claimed the pile-up of cases is shrinking at a “glacial pace”.