The few qualifications for Magistrates is that they must be 18-65 years old and that they have to live in close proximity to the local justice area in which they are allocated. This enables magistrates to be from all walks of society as it includes various types of people and anyone of any occupation, gender, race can volunteer to be a magistrate. However, certain classes of people such as policemen, armed forces, undischarged bankrupts etc are forbidden to apply. This do restricts some people and magistrates could no longer claim to be a representative of the society.
Although the requirements are broad, magistrates are usually of similar backgrounds which are aged 40 and above, white and of managerial or professional ranks. Although most magistrates are white, ethnic minorities are well represented as they take up about 8% of the magistrates. There has been campaigns and advertisements in 36 different magazines to encourage people to apply. Also, they can be said to represent society in terms of gender as they have equal proportions of both sex whereas the judiciary only consist 22% of females.
When magistrates reach the age of 70, their names are added to the supplemental list which enables them to either retire or continue on with administrative functions of signing documents. Lord Chancellor may also remove a lay magistrate when he deems that they are incompetent, are incapacity or when lay justice is declining due to their failure to perform their functions.
Training
The Courts Act 2003 sets out a statutory obligation on the Lord Chancellor to provide training and training materials to the magistrates The Magistrate National and Training Initiative is introduced to provide training which includes 4 areas of competence: Managing Yourself, Managing Judicial Decision, Making Judicial Decision and Working as a Team. Training sessions are usually done locally but the Judicial Studies Board take into account the need to collaborate regionally and nationally. In particular, the training of Youth and Family Panel chairmen is delivered nationally.
In the first 2 years of magistrates sitting in court, 8 of 11 sessions will be mentored and magistrates are required to attend training sessions. After 2 years, there will be an appraisal of the magistrates to check if they have acquired the competencies. Those who failed to do so will be given additional training however persistent failure to meet standards may lead to removal by the Lord Chancellor. This appraisal ensures that the quality of magistrates are in check.