Bail and remands. Adjournments and Remands on Bail and in Custody Flashcards
Power to Adjourn
At any stage before the case is sent to the Crown Court for trial or before (or during) a summary trial, a magistrates’ court may adjourn the proceedings.
When deciding whether to postpone, cancel or adjourn a hearing the court must take account of a number of matters, including the likelihood that the delay would be contrary to the court’s duty under r. 1.3 to apply the overriding objective, or its duty under r. 3.8 to ensure the conclusion of the case as soon as possible; the availability of a substitute hearing date; the need for ‘compelling reasons’, especially where the application is made at or shortly before the hearing; the nature and gravity of any failure to comply with a rule or direction, or to take some other step, where that failure prompts the application; and, where the application is based on a participant’s unfitness to attend, the evidence of that unfitness
the court must consider when deciding whether to adjourn the case:
(a) The court’s duty to deal justly with the case (this includes doing justice between the parties).
(b) The need for expedition: delay is ‘generally inimical to the interests of justice’ (it has the potential to bring the criminal justice system into disrepute).
(c) Proceedings in a magistrates’ court should be ‘simple and speedy’.
(d) Applications for adjournments must be ‘rigorously scrutinised’, and the court must have ‘cogent reasons for adjourning’.
(e) The court must review the history of the case (this is a reference to whether or not there have been previous adjournments in the case).
(f) The court should examine the nature of the evidence and whether memories of relevant evidence are liable to fade.
(g) The interests of any co-accused.
(h) The interests of any witness(es) who have attended the court, ‘with particular emphasis on their age and/or vulnerability’.
(i) The interest of the accused in ‘resolving the matter without undue delay’ but also the ‘public interest in ensuring that criminal charges are adjudicated upon thoroughly, with the guilty convicted as well as the innocent acquitted’.
(j) The more serious the charge, ‘the greater the public interest in the trial proceeding and the greater the responsibility of the parties to have engaged in effective preparation’.
(k) Where the accused asks for an adjournment, ‘whether they will be able to present the defence fully without one and the extent to which the ability to do so may be compromised by an immediate trial’.
(l) The court must consider the effect of an adjournment on the ability of witnesses and the accused ‘accurately to recall events’; the impact of adjournment on other cases; the length of time it may take to list the case for trial (i.e. the likely length of the delay).
(m) The court must also consider the ‘nature and gravity of fault on the part of the applicant for the adjournment and who is responsible for it’.
Where the accused seeks an adjournment on the basis of a prosecution failure to disclose material that ought to have been disclosed, the court ‘should consider whether the matter can be resolved by providing disclosure at that stage’ (for example, a short adjournment to later the same day may be appropriate);
if not, the court should consider whether the parties have complied with their obligations.
if the prosecutor has complied with the initial disclosure obligations, no further material is disclosable and so, in the absence of a defence statement no application to adjourn should be granted.
If the accused has served a defence statement and asks for further disclosure (but the prosecutor has not responded adequately or at all), an application must be made under the CPIA 1996, s. 8 (Application by accused for disclosure); the court ‘should consider hearing such an application immediately, provided that there is sufficient time available for the application itself and then for the defence to consider any material disclosed in consequence ofit’.
Repeated Applications
Where an adjournment has been refused, the court can change its mind only if there is a good reason.
A further application should therefore be made only if there has been a material change of circumstances.
or example, the prosecution had (before the date fixed for trial) sought an adjournment due to the non-availability of two witnesses. The magistrates refused the application. On the date fixed for trial, the prosecution made a further application for an adjournment. This time, the application was successful.
The Divisional Court held that the magistrates were wrong to allow the adjournment, since there had not been a change in circumstances since the first request to adjourn the trial.
Challenging Decisions on Adjournments
It is possible to challenge the grant or refusal of an adjournment by way of judicial review.
magistrates’ courts ‘must not be deterred from aprompt and robust determination’ of applications to adjourn, adding that, as ‘an exercise of discretion, the High Court will only interfere with a decision on adjournment if there are compelling reasons so to do’. It follows that the High Court will be ‘particularly slow’ to interfere with a decision to refuse an adjournment, given the discretionary nature of that decision
