§ Vera BairdTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many hours of training are provided for judges and magistrates in relation to domestic violence. [68318]
§ Yvette CooperJudicial Training is the responsibility of the Judicial Studies Board (JSB) which is an independent non-departmental public body. It is chaired by Lord Justice Waller.
All newly appointed part-time judges, and all judges who are authorised to hear family cases, are required to attend a residential Induction course in the relevant jurisdiction. Thereafter, both full- and part-time judges attend residential continuation seminars every 3 years in each jurisdiction they exercise. The amount of training time provided on Domestic Violence in JSB courses and seminars is shown in the annexed table. Many judges also attend locally organised conferences.
In addition all full and part-time judges sitting in the Crown Court attend an annual one-day Circuit Seminar on sentencing issues, for which the theme last year was Domestic Violence. This provided, on average, up to 5 hours of additional training on this subject in 2000–2001
Although the overall framework for the training of magistrates is set by the JSB, statutory responsibility for delivery of training lies with individual Magistrates' Courts Committees. Information on the number of hours training on domestic Information on the number of hours training on domestic violence provided to magistrates in each committee area could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
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Time provided on Training for Judges in relation to Domestic Violence Course/Seminar Lecture Group Discussion Continuation (Private Family Law) Split Trials in Domestic Violence Cases (15 mins) Syndicate discussion (1 hour 30 mins) Psychiatric Perspective of Children with a Violent Parent (45 mins) Injunctions and Committals (1 hour)