The spectacle of journalists bundling into magistrates' courts to see people accused of serious crimes being committed for trial will be consigned to the past if the Law Society gets its way on criminal procedure.Last week, Home Secretary Michael Howard decided to scrap his full-scale overhaul of the committal system.

The procedure Mr Howard had originally intended to put in place -- known as 'transfer for trial' -- was abandoned in the face of strong opposition from the Law Society and the Justices Clerks Society.Instead, Mr Howard opted for a simpler reform along the lines suggested by Chancery Lane -- the exclusion of oral evidence from contested old-style committals (see [1996] Gazette, 1 May 1964).

Now the Society is pressing the government to go further and adopt its proposals for uncontested committals.The government signalled its climbdown on transfer for trial by tabling amendments to the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Bill, now in its committee stage.

This week the Society hopes to table an amendment on uncontested committals, which would remove the need for the defendant to appear in court in person in most cases.At the moment 93% of committals are uncontested.

The secretary to the Society's criminal law committee, Roger Ede, says the government's plans for old-style committals will, if anything, cause this figure to rise.One of the main attractions of old-style committals for lawyers is the chance to hear witnesses give evidence in person and to cross-examine them, he explains.

Once oral evidence is removed from these committals, their attraction should diminish.The core of Chancery Lane's proposal would involve removing the need for the accused, and the lawyers on both sides, to attend a committal hearing.

'Reforming the system for uncontested committals would save court time, and bring down costs for both the Legal Aid Board and the Crown Prosecution Service,' Mr Ede says.

'At the moment the defendant has to appear in court every single time and the Crown Prosecution Service routinely serves committal papers at the hearing.'In our scheme the court manages the timetable, and, having heard representations from both sides, sets the date for the committal hearing.

The hearing w ill not take place if the parties adhere to a timetable [see left] and the court agrees it is not necessary.'Graham Parkinson, chairman of the Magistrates Association's legal committee, supports the Law Society's scheme for uncontested committals.

He notes that there is already a procedure in place removing the need for defendants to attend court, but it is rarely used by solicitors.He says that if the Society's scheme were taken up by the government, much would depend on whether the Crown Prosecution Service would be able to serve the papers on time, particularly in view of recent CPS cutbacks.Another problem might be raised by the unrepresented defendant.

'How can I satisfy myself that a defendant with no legal representation has read and understood the papers served on him?' Mr Parkinson asks.But he welcomes the government's U-turn on transfer for trial as 'very good news', while adding that his association supported the original concept.'One of our main concerns was that amid all the bureaucracy, the court would lose control over what was going on,' he says.Franklin Sinclair, vice-chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, supports the Society's scheme for uncontested committals, saying he is in favour of anything which would cut down on 'wasted court hours where nothing is achieved'.Gayner Hougton-Jones, chairman of the criminal law committee of the Justices Clerks Society, shares the general relief that transfer for trial will not now go ahead, saying she was 'delighted that the Home Office has ditched an unnecessarily bureaucratic and expensive procedure'.

The Home Office has argued that adopting the Law Society's scheme on uncontested committals would involve the introduction of some of the same complex procedural arrangements which bedevilled the transfer for trial scheme.But Mr Ede maintains the blueprint is 'fundamentally different' from transfer for trial, which he blames for wasting a massive amount of Home Office and CPS time and money.'Our timetable is court managed and works back from the date the court sets for the committal instead of being imposed from the beginning,' he says.

'If time runs out, there is a hearing.

If the parties can comply with the timetable, everyone is spared attending a hearing unnecessarily.'MAIN POINTS OF THE LAW SOCIETY'S UNCONTESTED COMMITTALS PLAN-- the court sets the committal date;-- a fortnight before the committal date, the prosecutor serves the prosecution case statements on the defence and the court;-- seven days before the committal date, the accused or his legal representative sends a 'certificate of agreement' to the prosecutor and the court, agreeing to a 6(2) committal and requesting that attendance of all parties is dispensed with;-- three days before the committal date, the court sends a notice to the accused or his legal representative and the prosecutor, excusing the parties from attending;-- the case is committed to the Crown Court by a justices' clerk or delegated member of staff, without a hearing taking place.