Article 8 Composition and chairmen of family proceedings courts

The justices to sit in each family proceedings court shall be chosen from the panel in such manner as the panel determines so as to ensure that section 66(1) and (2) of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 (which provides how a family proceedings court is to be constituted) is complied with (except where a single justice is authorised to discharge the functions of a magistrates' court).

Subject to paragraph (3), the chairman of a family proceedings court which does not include a District Judge (Magistrates' Courts) (whether sitting alone or as chairman) shall be a justice nominated by the Lord Chancellor to act as a court chairman.

Any justice who is eligible to act as a court chairman of a family proceedings court in any petty sessions area in the Greater London area on 31st December 2003 shall be entitled to continue to preside in a family proceedings court until 31st December 2005.

If at any sitting of a family proceedings court which does not include a District Judge (Magistrates' Courts) (whether sitting alone or as chairman), a chairman is available to act as chairman but considers that it would be appropriate for another member of the court to act as chairman at that sitting, he may nominate that member to act as chairman at the sitting provided that the chairman who makes the nomination sits as a member of the court throughout the sitting.

If, at any sitting of a family proceedings court, a District Judge (Magistrates' Courts) or the chairman who was chosen to preside in court cannot do so owing to circumstances unforeseen when the justices to sit were chosen under paragraph (1), the members of that court shall choose one of their number to preside.