Policy background Custodial Sentences Repeal of uncommenced provision for establishment of recall adjudicators
The Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 ("the 2015 Act") introduced provisions for the creation of a new body of decision makers called ‘recall adjudicators’. This was done with the intention of removing from the Parole Board the responsibility for reviewing the detention of recalled fixed-term prisoners and instead have those cases reviewed by recall adjudicators appointed by the Secretary of State. This was conceived in order to reduce pressure on the Parole Board because of the large and increasing backlog of oral hearings that had developed since the ‘Osborn’ Supreme Court judgment in 2013, which required the Parole Board to direct a higher proportion of cases to an oral hearing as opposed to a decision on the papers.
	Following Royal Assent of the 2015 Act, implementation was delayed by the General Election. In the intervening time new ways of working enabled the pressure on the Parole Board to be reduced and the backlog of cases awaiting an oral hearing to be eliminated. As a result, it was no longer necessary to implement those provisions and they have become redundant. Section 135 repeals these provisions.