Remuneration of Ordinary Judges of the Court of Appeal and Royal Court Commissioners

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A decision made 6 July 2015:

Decision Reference: MD-TR-2015-0042
Decision Summary Title:	Remuneration of Ordinary Judges of the Court of Appeal and Royal Court Commissioners		Date of Decision Summary:	20 March 2015
Decision Summary Author:	Head of Decision Support		Decision Summary: Public or Exempt?	Public
Type of Report: Oral or Written?	Written		Person Giving Oral Report:	N/A
Written Report Title:	Remuneration of Ordinary Judges of the Court of Appeal and Royal Court Commissioners		Date of Written Report:	20 March 2015
Written Report Author:	Head of Decision Support		Written Report : Public or Exempt?	Public
Subject: Remuneration of Ordinary Judges of the Court of Appeal and Royal Court Commissioners.
Decision(s): The Minister for Treasury & Resources determined that the remuneration for Court of Appeal Judges and Royal Court Commissioners should increase from £839 per day to £848 per day with effect from 1st April 2015.
Reason(s) for decision: The remuneration paid to both Court of Appeal Judges and Royal Court Commissioners is, and always has been, in line with the remuneration paid to a Deputy High Court Judge in England and Wales which are due to increase with effect from 1st April 2015.
Resource Implications: Any increased costs will be contained within existing budgets.
Action required: Head of Decision Support to advise the Bailiff that this decision has been approved.
Signature:		Position: Senator A J H Maclean, Minister for Treasury and Resources
Date Signed:		Date of Decision:

Remuneration of Ordinary Judges of the Court of Appeal and Royal Court Commissioners

Treasury and Resources

Ministerial Decision Report

REMUNERATION of Ordinary Judges of the court of appeal and royal court commissioners

Purpose of Report

To enable the Minister to consider a request to increase the remuneration paid to both Court of Appeal Judges and Royal Commissioners, with effect from 1st April 2015.

Background

The remuneration paid to both Court of Appeal Judges and Commissioners is, and always has been, in line with the remuneration paid to a Deputy High Court Judge in England and Wales. It was brought to the Minister’s attention by the Bailiff that, with effect from 1st April 2015, the remuneration for a Deputy High Court Judge will increase from £839 to £848 per day (an increase of 1%).

The Minister for Treasury and Resources, after consultation with the Bailiff, may approve an increase, in accordance with the following:-

Article 10(8) of the Royal Court (Jersey) Law 1948 states:

“Commissioners shall receive such remuneration as may be determined, after consultation with the Bailiff, by the Minister for Treasury and Resources, and shall be entitled to reimbursement of all travelling and other expenses incurred by them in the discharge of their functions under this article.”

Article 6 (1) of the Court of Appeal (Jersey) Law 1961 states:

“The ordinary judges of the Court of Appeal shall receive such remuneration as may be determined by the Minister for Treasury and Resources and shall be entitled to reimbursement of all travelling and other expenses.”

This increase is in addition to the increase agreed in January 2015 (MD-TR-2015-0013).

Proposal

The Minister for Treasury and Resources, after consultation with the Bailiff, determined that the remuneration for Court of Appeal Judges and Royal Court Commissioners should increase from £839 per day to £848 per day with effect from 1st April 2015.

Resource Implications

Increased costs will be contained within existing budgets.

Royal Court Judges –

Total spend for 2014 was £298,903.

It is impossible to quantify accurately the spend for this year. However to date the expenditure is £187,676. As there was no Deputy Bailiff appointed for 3 months of 2015, an additional Commissioner received remuneration for these three months.

In addition, there has been a number of cases which have required the appointment of a Commissioner due to various conflicts, length of trial, etc.

Remuneration for Commissioners and Court of Appeal Judges has always been paid in accordance with that of Deputy High Court Judges and previous increases have been as follows:

2011- 0%

2012 – 0%

2013 – 1.02% (from £785 per day to £793 per day)

Court of Appeal Judges –

Total fees paid –

2011 £231,088.33

2012 £105,956.62

2013 £160,324.41

2014 £178,268.55

The expenditure in each year is proportionate and responsive to a number of variables such as the number of appeals received, how complicated these are, how much preparation and judgment writing time is required by the judges and how long each sitting lasts. It is not possible at this stage to predict how much judges will be paid this year. It is likely that expenditure for 2015 will be above that of 2014 however at this stage the Judicial Greffe are unable to predict the level with certainty.

Report author : Decision Support Officer	Document date : 18 June 2015
Quality Assurance / Review : Head of Decision Support	File name and path: L:\Treasury\Sections\Corporate Finance\Ministerial Decisions\DSs, WRs and SDs\2015-0013 - Renumeration of Ordinary Judges of the Court of Appeal
MD sponsor : Treasurer of the States

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