Lay magistrates are appointed by the Lord Chancellor (on behalf of the Queen) on the recommendation of the 100 local advisory committee which interviews candidates, who in turn are usually put forward by the local political parties. Membership of these committees is kept secret and the process is not made public. District judges are also appointed by the Lord Chancellor and are appointed from those who have held advocacy qualifications for seven years.
To be a magistrate, you must live or work within 15 miles of the area to which you are appointed. A candidate for appointment must be aged over 27 and under 65. A candidate may nominate himself / herself or be nominated by others. The nomination is considered by a local advisory board which then makes recommendations to the Lord Chancellor. Magistrates must be British subjects and should be of suitable character for the job and recognised as such by a member of their community. It is open for anyone to apply or recommend a person to be a magistrate and adverts have appeared in local papers asking for nominations.
The following will not be appointed:
- people over 65
- People convicted of certain offences
- Undischarged bankrupts
- Some disabled people
- A member of the police force
- A serving member of the armed forces
- A close relative of a person who is already a magistrate in the same place.
- A traffic warden
- Any person whose work would be incompatible or conflict with the duties of a magistrate.
- Anyone who, because of a disability, cannot carry out all the duties of a magistrate.
Before sitting in court lay magistrates are sworn in at an official ceremony. They then attend an induction training over 1 – 2 days (sometimes there are several evening or weekend sessions) In their training they learn about their duties and about sentencing and make visits to prisons. They also spend some time observing other J.P’s at work in the court and work with a mentor who will review their work in up to 6 sittings. They learn ‘on the job’ and receive extensive training in sentencing, as well as communication and chairmanship skills. After 4 – 5 years a competent magistrate can become a ‘chair taker’, chairing retiring room discussions and making pronouncements in court. All chairmen magistrates must now undergo compulsory refresher courses every 5 yrs. Both basic and refresher courses contain compulsory assessments by judges, justice’s clerks and fellow lay magistrates. Magistrates alone, decide the facts, the law and the sentence in the court. They receive ‘hand-on’ practical experience and training in equality awareness Each magistrate is expected to undertake a fair share of the work of the bench. They may choose to apply to train to sit in the family, youth or licensing court. On going training continues with appraisals every 3 years, to check that they are competent and to identify any specific training.
- Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using ordinary members of the public as judges.
Advantages of using ordinary members of the public
It provides a cheap and speedy way of dispensing justice. To replace Lay magistrates we would need 4,000 professional judges, costing well over £100 million a year in salaries and the additional cost of educating additional lawyers to fill the positions.
Magistrates are said to have a good knowledge of the community within they operate and work in its best interests. If you took away the lay element it would deprive the administration of justice of valuable citizen participation – which although human and prone to mistakes, is important in offsetting the case – hardened professionalism of lawyers and law enforcement agencies such as the police.
The system as it stands today is regarded as efficient. As there are only about 600 full time judges as compared to 30,000 magistrates, it is clear that our legal system would not be unable to operate efficiently without them.
Disadvantages of using ordinary members of the public
There is criticism that Lay Magistrates do not represent the local community in which they administer justice. Lord Irvine (the last Lord Chancellor) was particularly concerned about political imbalance on many benches. In his letter to the Times dated 15th October 1997 he said that the local advisory committees should recommend suitable candidates ‘Who will help create benches broadly reflecting the communities they serve in terms of gender, ethnic origin, occupation, geographical location and political persuasion’. The statistics say that most Lay Magistrates are ‘white, middle-class, middle-aged and conservative and undermine public confidence which is generally suspected of class and race bias and a pro police prejudice in their dispensation of justice. This puts a social barrier between Magistrates and defendants. They have been criticised for a tendency to believe the police and their witnesses too readily. They are described as ‘too prosecution-minded’. Recent recruitment drives are making changes to recruit people from under-represented sections by advertising vacancies in ethnic minority newspapers and by persuading local employers to give paid time off to employees who wish to serve as J.P’s.
There are more men than women (approximately 16,000 male J.P’s to 14,000 female J.P’s). A few years ago ethnic minorities comprised less than 2%, but recent efforts to improve recruitment have resulted in an increase to 6 - 7% of new appointments. Only about 15% of J.P’s have a manual labour background; the vast majority are from ‘white-collar’ professions or are well off housewives.
The amateur nature of most benches is said to result in efficient handling of cases and a reluctance to challenge delaying tactics of defence counsel in particular. They are criticised as being amateurs and having relatively little guidance on sentencing. They have a Home Office Booklet ‘The sentence of the Court’ to guide them and can always seek advice from their clerk. They are criticised for inconsistencies between different magistrate’s courts and sentencing. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett organised a Home office survey into sentencing and found geographical variations in punishments e.g. 3.5% of criminals committed of receiving stolen goods in Reading are sent to jail compared to 48% in Greenwich and Woolwich for the same offence. There is power to review the sentences passed by magistrates held by the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court.
They are the backbone of our criminal justice system, hearing over 95% of all criminal cases, which is twenty times the number managed by the crown courts. All criminal cases start at the magistrate’s court. No less than 98% finish there as well. The position of Magistrate (J.P) dates back to the Justices of the Peace Act 1361. The judicial system, at least at the petty end of criminal justice could not be run without them. Magistrates deal with motoring offences, hear juvenile and domestic cases, take administrative decisions e.g. licensing pubs and betting shops and grant warrants and bail and listen to preliminary hearings of evidence relating to serious crimes and magistrates courts nowadays have statutory jurisdiction in certain family law matters. To use ordinary members of the public as judges has in my opinion produced a workable system.
.Bibliography
The English legal system 1998 Old Bailey Press C. P. Reed
‘A’ Level Law 1996 Butterworths T. Dugdale, M. Furmston, S .Jones, and C. Sherrin
Law for GCSE (4th Edition) 1999 Longman P. Shears
English Legal system (2nd edition) Hodder and Stoughton J. Martin
Law (2nd edition) 2003 Hodder and Stoughton J. Martin