Article 10 Composition of family proceedings courts

The members of a panel shall meet as often as may be necessary but not less than twice a year to make arrangements connected with the sitting of family proceedings courts and to discuss questions connected with the work of those courts.

The justices to sit in each family proceedings court shall be chosen from the panel in such manner as the panel may determine so as to ensure that section 66(1) of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980^f1(which requires a family proceedings court to be composed of not more than three justices of the peace, including, so far as practicable, both a man and a woman), is complied with.

Except as is provided by paragraph (4), where a stipendiary magistrate is chosen to sit in a family proceedings court under paragraph (2) he shall preside, but where a stipendiary magistrate is not so chosen, the court shall sit under the chairmanship of the chairman or a deputy chairman elected under rule 8.

If, at any sitting of a family proceedings court, a stipendiary magistrate, the chairman or a deputy chairman who was chosen to sit as a member of the court cannot do so owing to circumstances unforeseen when the justices to sit were chosen under paragraph (2), the members of that court shall choose one of their number to preside.