Delays in the family court in London and the south east are partly due to a 20% shortage of judges, Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the Family Division, has told MPs
Giving evidence to the Justice Committee last week, Sir Andrew said circuit judges are always recruited at the same time as district judges and a ‘proportion of the new circuit judges are district judges, and so you are putting people into one bucket while the bucket is being emptied at the same time, so it is playing catch-up.
‘So we rely a lot on fee paid judges, and they of course can decide whether or not to take up the invitation to sit’.
He said a culture of ‘allowing cases to drift’ had developed in London but is now being reversed. The average time for public law cases in London and the south east is ‘much higher’ than the current national average of 34 weeks.
Sir Andrew will step down in the next six months.
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