The Civil Procedure (Modification of Crown Proceedings Act 1947) Order 2005

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

The Crown Proceedings Act 1947 allows the Crown special privileges as to the venue of civil proceedings (section 19) and as to the transfer of civil proceedings from the county courts to the High Court (section 20). Section 35 requires rules of court to be made about the content of claim forms in civil proceedings against the Crown, and about default judgments, summary judgments and interrogatories. This Order amends the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 to enable these procedural privileges of the Crown to be revoked when a new Part 66 is added to the Civil Procedure Rules replacing RSC Order 77 (in Schedule 1 to those Rules) and CCR Order 42 (in Schedule 2).

The revocation of CCR Order 42 in Schedule 2 to the CPR will mean that there will no longer be any rules of court on Crown proceedings applying only to the county courts. The 1947 Act includes a number of specific references to “county court rules” which will therefore cease to have any meaning, and which are accordingly repealed.

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Race Relations Act 1976 and Disability Discrimination Act 1995 each contain a provision disapplying section 20 of the 1947 Act, so that in proceedings under those Acts the Crown already has no privileges as to the transfer of proceedings from the county courts to the High Court. The repeal of the relevant parts of section 20 requires consequential amendments to those three Acts.