Explanatory note

These Rules amend the Magistrates' Courts Rules 1981 so as to transfer the administrative functions of justices' clerks under the Rules to justices' chief executives in line with sections 90 (transfer of clerks' functions to chief executives) and 91 (accounting etc. functions of chief executives) of, and Schedule 13 to, the Access to Justice Act 1999 which implement corresponding transfers in primary legislation.

Subsection (5) of section 90 provides that, for the purposes of that section, the administrative functions of justices' clerks are all of their functions apart from those which are legal functions within the meaning given by section 48(2) of the Justices' of the Peace Act 1997 (c. 25), as substituted by section 89(1) of the 1999 Act.