Article 12 Appraisal of justices

(1)

Every BTDC shall establish a scheme to appraise the performance on the bench of the justices, such as will enable it to—

(a)

determine their training and development needs;

(b)

report to the MATC on their training needs; and

(c)

maintain a list of approved court chairmen in accordance with rules 32, 33 and 34.

(2)

The BTDC shall select justices to conduct appraisals (“the appraising justices”) and it may also arrange for a justice assigned to a different local justice area to conduct appraisals.

(3)

The BTDC shall determine the intervals at which justices are to be appraised, having regard to the requirements of rule 34.

(4)

The BTDC shall establish a procedure for conducting appraisals, which shall include the following elements—

(a)

the notification that will be given to the justice to be appraised (“the appraised justice”);

(b)

a procedure for the appraising justice to record his assessment and for notifying the appraised justice and the BTDC of that assessment;

(c)

a procedure for enabling the appraised justice to discuss the assessment with the appraising justice and a procedure enabling the appraised justice to challenge the assessment to a person other than the appraising justice; and

(d)

the time limits for those procedures.

(5)

The BTDC shall publish its scheme to the justices.

(6)

Where the BTDC is exercising its appraisal function in respect of family justices or youth justices—

(a)

a reference in this rule to “justice” shall be a reference to a family justice or youth justice as the case may be and “justices” shall be construed accordingly;

(b)

a reference in this rule to rule 34 shall be—

(i)

in the case of family justices, a reference to rule 35; and

(ii)

in relation to youth justices, a reference to rule 36; and

(c)

when complying with paragraph (3), the BTDC shall have regard also to the requirements of rule 38(b).