| 释义 |
committal proceedings
Formerly, a preliminary hearing in a magistrates’ court held before a case was sent to be tried before a jury in the Crown Court. There were two forms of committal proceedings under section 6 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980: committal without consideration of the evidence or committal with consideration of the evidence. No oral evidence was heard. The prosecution had to establish a prima facie case before the case could be committed to the Crown Court and the defence could make a submission of no case to answer. The test for the magistrates was whether the prosecution evidence taken at its highest was such that a jury properly directed could not properly convict on it (R v Galbraith [1981] 1 WLR 1039). Committal hearings for indictable-only offences were abolished in 2001 and committal hearings where the accused was charged with an offence triable either way and had elected to be tried in the Crown Court were abolished in 2013. |