Committals in either way criminal cases will be abolished from April 2012, the justice secretary announced today.

Kenneth Clarke said the change will be effected by bringing into force schedule 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 on a phased basis. The regions where it will be introduced first will be announced later.

Subject to a satisfactory assessment of the first phase, the change will be fully implemented over the next year, Clarke said.

In the meantime, lawyers doing publicly funded criminal work will not be paid for the work done in magistrates’ courts in either way offences, following a fee change introduced on 3 October which removed payment for committals.

The Law Society has already launched a judicial review of the government’s decision to remove the fee, claiming it was irrational and unlawful. That challenge is unaffected by today's announcement and will go ahead next month.

Section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 abolished committals in indictable-only cases, replacing them with a new ‘sending’ procedure, where cases are sent straight to the Crown court after the defendant’s first appearance in the magistrates’ court. Schedule 3 of the CJA 2003 made provision for the same procedure to be adopted in either way cases, but up to now it has not been enacted.

Clarke said: ‘It is in the interests of victims and witnesses, and of the criminal justice system generally, that court procedures should be made as efficient as possible, for example by cutting out unnecessary court hearings.

‘More than 10 years ago, committal proceedings were abolished in indictable-only offences, and replaced by a new ‘sending’ procedure.

‘The government has decided that the time has come to complete that reform by extending it to offences triable either way. This will enable the Crown court to manage such cases from an earlier stage, and facilitate efforts to encourage defendants who intend to plead guilty to do so sooner.’

Clarke said the change has the potential to improve the criminal justice system.

But Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson lambasted the move, commenting: ‘The Society instituted its judicial review because it is wholly unreasonable for the government to expect defence lawyers to do work and not get paid a penny for it. I wonder if the Ministry of Justice would ask prison officers or any other employee or contractor under their ambit to undertake unpaid work? This announcement does not change that.

'Had the government taken the rational approach of abolishing committals as a way of removing the need for the work, and thus the need to pay a fee, we would not have had to take this step. Now firms will have to adapt to yet another significant change to the way they work, when the ministry could have implemented these inextricably linked steps together.’