Khan v Waltham Forest Magistrates Court

An adjournment of criminal proceedings remains a matter for the magistrates’ discretion, even where the need for it results from prosecution error. The court must consider each application on its merits and must not operate a policy of granting a free adjournment to the prosecution. Relevant factors include expedition, responsibility for the default, fairness to both parties, and the wider interests of justice. An appellate or supervisory court will intervene only on clear grounds, such as substantial unfairness. Parties and the court must actively assist in avoiding delay and should consider practical alternatives, including completing the hearing later the same day. At an early stage of proceedings, sufficient reasons may be given informally where the circumstances show that the competing interests were properly considered.

The claimant sought judicial review of the decision of Waltham Forest Magistrates’ Court on 24 April 2007 to adjourn committal proceedings for one week. The prosecution had not served the committal papers and was not ready to proceed, owing to administrative failures. The claimant argued that the magistrates had acted unreasonably and unfairly, failed to scrutinise the application rigorously, and failed to give adequate reasons. The case was subsequently committed to the Crown Court on the papers on 2 May 2007. The central issues were whether the magistrates had exercised their discretion lawfully and whether relief should be granted.

1. Application dismissed. The magistrates had lawfully exercised their discretion to adjourn the committal proceedings for one week.
2. An adjournment is a discretionary decision. The fact that the prosecution caused the need for the adjournment is a factor against granting it, but it does not deprive the magistrates of power to grant relief against the prosecution’s own fault. A supervisory court should intervene only on clear grounds, including substantial unfairness. The principles summarised in Crown Prosecution Service v Picton [2006] EWHC 1108 Admin, and stated in R v Aberdare Justices ex p Director of Public Prosecutions [1990] 155 JP 324 and R v Hereford Magistrates’ Court ex p Rowlands [1998] QB 110, were applied.
3. There could be no policy of automatically granting a first prosecution application to adjourn. Each case required individual consideration. Such a policy would be contrary to the overriding objective in the Criminal Procedure Rules 2005.
4. The parties and the magistrates were required actively to assist the court under paragraph 3.3 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2005. They should have considered whether the committal could take place later that day. Neither a party’s inconvenience nor the prosecution’s administrative failure was a decisive answer.
5. The magistrates’ decision to shorten the adjournment sought and warn that dismissal might follow if the committal was not effective showed that they had considered the competing arguments. At this early stage of proceedings, substantial formal reasons were unnecessary. The absence of a request for fuller reasons at the hearing was also significant.
6. Alternatively, even if the reasons were insufficient, relief would have been refused. The claimant suffered inconvenience but no legal unfairness. The case proceeded to a fair committal and the Crown Court proceedings should not be halted where doing so would achieve no useful purpose.
7. Lord Justice Hughes agreed and emphasised that courts must prevent a culture of adjournment and that parties must not pursue tactical advantage at the expense of their duty to assist the court and avoid unnecessary hearings.

The claimant sought judicial review of the decision of Waltham Forest Magistrates’ Court dated 24 April 2007. The magistrates’ decision was upheld and the claim was dismissed.