The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) handed down judgement in R v I and Others [2009] EWCA Crim (B1) on 14th August 2009. In an interlocutory appeal by the Crown the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) had to consider whether the Judge who had previously resided over the preparatory hearing was entitled as a matter of law to decide that he should not conduct the trials and enable another judge to take the case over due to a scheduling clash between the present case and an older case.

Under sections 35 and 31(3)(b) of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 c. 25 an interlocutory appeal is available to the parties to a preparatory hearing on any ruling of the judge in relation to a question of law. Although a case management decision would not ordinarily raise a question of law the present case did not relate to the merits of the judges decision but to whether he had the power in law to make it.

The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) dismissing the appeal held that on the facts of the case the Judge was entitled to make the decision not to preside over the trials due to a direct clash of commitments. The Court held that there needed to be a “sufficiently compelling reason to depart from the norm” that the Judge who conducts any case management proceedings should conduct the trial. Departing from the formula employed in R v Southwark Crown Court (1993) 97 Cr App R 266 the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) summarised what ought to be the practice in this kind of situation.