Some Youth Court sessions have been cancelled due to a shortage of panel members, it has emerged – prompting the Home Affairs Minister to propose increasing the role’s retirement age to 70.
Deputy Mary Le Hegarat has lodged an amendment which would see the retirement age of Youth Court panel members change from 60 to 70 years old.
It comes after members of the judiciary warned that there is a “material risk” of the court not being able to sit due to having an “insufficient pool of individuals” to populate the panel.
The Home Affairs Minister said that her proposition aims to address this “identified issue”.
She explained: “The Youth Court has previously had to cancel youth courts due to a lack of panel members.
“Whilst efforts have been made to recruit new panel members, there is an issue as panel members must retire at the age of 60.
“This serves to prohibit some members of the community applying to be members and for existing members with some years of experience, forced to retire.”
Deputy Le Hegarat pointed to the fact that the current retirement age for Jurats is 72, and 70 for the Magistrate who chairs the Youth Court.
The Minister’s amendment also includes gender neutralising of the term “chairman” and substituting it with the term “chair” in the court.
What is the Youth Court?
The Youth Court deals with cases involving children and teenagers under 18.
The Youth Court panel includes three people: a Magistrate, who chairs the court, and two panel members (of which at least one must be a woman).
Panel members are local volunteers chosen by the Royal Court. They are not paid for this role.
