Magistrates

Magistrates

The office of Justices of the Peace was first established over 600

years ago with the Justices of the Peace Act 1361 and Justices of the

Peace or Lay Magistrates are essential to our legal system and try (or

least deal with in some respect) 93% of all criminal cases and also

perform an important function with regard to some civil areas.

The role of the magistrates can be listed as follows:-

Ø Trying summary offences

Ø Trying offences triable either way where the accused elects for

summary trial

Ø Holding committal proceedings where the offence is TEW and the

accused elects for jury trial.

Ø Issuing summons, issuing search warrants and warrants for arrest.

Ø Dealing with applications for bail

Ø Dealing with applications for legal aid in criminal cases

Ø Dealing with applications for licences such as firearms and liquor

Ø Dealing with certain domestic matters such as maintenance orders

etc.

Ø Trying offences committed by youths in the Youth Court.

Appointment

Lay magistrates are appointed by the Minister of Constitutional

Affairs on behalf of the Crown on the advice of a local advisory

committee. These committees may either approach people or you can

apply to become a magistrate.

You must be under the age of 65 and must live within 15 miles of the

bench on which you will serve. The Ministry of Constitutional Affairs

has now issued a job description outlines the characteristics it is

felt that you need to be a magistrate but essentially it is still

considered that you should be considered an upstanding member of

community

Training

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...wider training (i.e. nationwide) but this would be expensive.

c) Clearer guidelines

At the moment magistrates have very wide discretion when passing

sentences and thus allows magistrates flexibility but also

inconsistency. If magistrates were to be given tighter guidelines and

less discretion this might improve consistency.

d) Replace magistrates entirely with District Judges (Magistrates

Court)

Some have suggested the abolition of lay magistrates in favour of

professional magistrates. This would have the advantage of improved

consistency and more efficient trials, but would lose the

participation of lay persons, the local knowledge of issues and the

relative cheapness of the lay magistrate to the system. There would

also be the practical problem of where would you find all of these

professional judges.