Explanatory Notes

Courts Act 2003

2003 CHAPTER 39

20 November 2003

Background

Head and deputy head of civil justice,

147.The Act establishes the positions of Head and Deputy Head of Civil Justice as statutory titles.

148.The creation of the post of Head of Civil Justice was recommended in Lord Woolf’s report on 'Access to Justice' (1996). The above posts are created in the Act on the basis that the Lord Chancellor must appoint a Head of Civil Justice, but that the power to appoint a Deputy Head is a permissive one.