The Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (Commencement No. 6 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2016

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order brings into force provisions of the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014. The provisions specified in column 1 of the table in the Schedule to the Order come into force on 1st April 2016. The subject matter of these provisions is set out in column 2 of the table, and where provisions are brought into force only for a limited purpose, this purpose is given in column 3.

Article 3 of the Order makes transitional provision to deal with the abolition of stipendiary magistrates on 1st April 2016 part-way through criminal proceedings. At present, a JP court when constituted by a stipendiary magistrate has the summary criminal jurisdiction and powers of a sheriff under section 7(5) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. A JP court constituted by a summary sheriff will not have those powers and section 7(5) is repealed by paragraph 39 of schedule 5 to the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 which is commenced by this Order.

Article 3(2) ensures that a summary sheriff will have the same powers previously available under section 7(5) for a limited period, namely in existing cases that were heard to any extent by a stipendiary magistrate and where sentence has not been pronounced before 1st April 2016. This ensures that the summary sheriff has the full range of sentencing options that were available to the stipendiary magistrate that heard the case.

The Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 received Royal Assent on 10th November 2014. Sections 133, 134(1) and (3) and 135 to 139 came into force the following day.