Explanatory note

This Order places on a statutory footing for the first time the process for selecting chairmen of juvenile courts in the inner London area. The new process follows, with minor modifications, the non-statutory process which has been in use for the past five years.

Article 3 prescribes the four qualifications which a person must have before he can be nominated by the Lord Chancellor as a juvenile court chairman. This article also has the effect of requiring that a nomination may only be made on the recommendation of a Selection Committee.

Articles 4 to 7 provide that a justice who already possesses the first two of the requirements prescribed by article 3 may proceed to take a special course (i.e. the third of the article 3 qualifications), and establish a Course Assessment Panel as the authority which is to determine whether the course has been successfully completed.

Articles 8 to 13 establish a Selection Committee to decide which justices who are eligible under article 3 should be recommended to the Lord Chancellor for nomination. Articles 14 and 15 allow present or past juvenile court chairmen to be re-nominated if the Selection Committee considers them suitable; and article 16 requires that an eligible chairman whom the Committee is minded not to recommend for re-nomination shall be given an opportunity to be heard before a final decision is taken.

Article 17 enables the Selection Committee to recommend to the Lord Chancellor at any time that a nomination of a justice as a court chairman should be suspended or revoked.