JUDGES OF COUNTY COURTS (Hansard, 7 April 1971)

§ The Attorney-General
I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 16, line 32, leave out subsection (1) and insert: (1) Every Circuit judge shall, by virtue of his office, be capable of sitting as a judge for any county court district in England and Wales, and the Lord Chancellor shall assign one or more Circuit judges to each district and may from time to time vary the assignment of Circuit judges among the districts. (2) Subject to any directions given by or on behalf of the Lord Chancellor, in any case where more than one Circuit judge is assigned to a district under subsection (1) above, any function conferred by or under the County Courts Act 1959 on the judge for a district may be exercised by any of the Circuit judges for the time being assigned to that district. Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House to consider at the same time the following further Government Amendments, which are all linked: Nos. 18, 19, 33, 54, 55, 58, 64, 73, and 77.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)
Yes, if that is the wish of the House.

§ The Attorney-General
In effect, these are all drafting Amendments in the sense that they restate the provisions of Section 4 of the County Courts Act, 1959 in terms more appropriate to this Bill, and they simplify the procedure whereby circuit judges and deputies are to act as judges for county court districts.
552 Under Clause 20 as at present drafted, circuit judges do not automatically become judges for county court districts but must be appointed under the 1959 Act. The effect would be that, when a circuit judge was to sit temporarily as the judge for a particular district, it would be necessary to appoint him to that district under Section 4 and then, when he had sat, to make a further order under Section 4(5) to the effect that he should cease to be a judge for that district. It would be necessary also to make a double appointment in the case of a deputy judge. This is an unnecessarily cumbersome machinery, and the Amendments are intended to simplify it.
Amendment No. 17 provides in subsection (1) that every circuit judge—and, under Clause 24(3), any deputy—is to be capable of sitting as a judge for any county court district.
Amendment No. 18 is consequential. The new structure of Clause 20 makes it misleading to speak of Lords Justices, High Court judges and recorders sitting as though they had been appointed for every county court district. Under the Amendment, any such judge will be capable of sitting as a judge for any county court district". Amendment No. 19 sets out the circumstances in which a circuit judge who is not assigned to a district may act as the judge for a district. This is to be 553 at the direction of the Lord Chancellor or where it appears to the circuit judge that the judge for the district is not available. These matters were overlooked and are now corrected.
The remaining Amendments are all consequential, making the necessary adjustments. They are, as I say, drafting Amendments, in effect, removing an unnecessarily cumbersome procedure.