55.—Section 46 of the Act of 2002 is amended by—

(a) the substitution of the following subsections for subsections (3), (4) and (5):

“(3) Subject to subsection (6), if judgment in the proceedings concerned is not delivered before the expiration of 2 months from the date on which it is reserved, the President of the Court shall, as soon as may be after—

(a) the said expiration, and

(b) the expiration of each subsequent period of 2 months (if judgment is not delivered first),

list the proceedings or cause them to be listed before the judge who reserved judgment therein and shall give notice in writing to the parties to the proceedings of each date on which the proceedings are listed in accordance with this section.

(3A) If, apart from this subsection, subsection (3) would operate to require the President of the Court to do anything referred to in that subsection during a period when the court is in vacation, then that subsection shall be construed as requiring that President to do that thing as soon as may be after the expiration of that period.

(4) Where proceedings are listed before a judge in accordance with subsection (3), the judge shall specify the date on which he or she proposes to deliver judgment in the proceedings.

(5) The date specified by a judge under subsection (4) shall, in relation to the proceedings concerned, be entered in the register and where the proceedings concerned have been listed more than once in accordance with subsection (1), there shall be entered in the register on each occasion on which they are so listed the date, for the time being, standing so specified.”,

(b) the deletion of paragraph (b) of subsection (9),

(c) the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (10):

“(10) In this section references to a judge shall, in the case of a court constituted of more than one judge, be construed as references to the judge who, among the judges of which the court was constituted, ranks first in order of precedence in accordance with section 9 (inserted by section 9 of the Courts (No. 2) Act 1997) of the Courts of Justice Act 1924.”,

(d) the insertion of the following definition in subsection (11):

“ ‘President of the Court’ means—

(a) in relation to the District Court, the President of the District Court,

(b) in relation to the Circuit Court, the President of the Circuit Court,

(c) in relation to the High Court, the President of the High Court,

(d) in relation to the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice;”.