OPINION: Rex Makin

By Ben Schofield on Oct 28, 08 10:33 AM

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Rex Makin says Lay Magistrates' days may be numbered.

THE office of Justice of the Peace goes back hundreds of years, but how long will it last? Magistrates' courts are drying up with business, apart from the Family Courts.

The reason is two-fold: first of all, instead of cases being filtered before they are sent to a higher court, they are dispensed with an alacrity which is the speed of Mercury. The old practice of having oral committals has virtually been abolished and accused people are dispatched to the Crown court. While this has the advantage of speeding up justice, it is also justice denied.

Under the old procedure of oral committals, witnesses were tested and many a charge was dismissed.
The magistrate who heard the committal proceedings was known as the examining magistrate. Now cautions and fixed penalties have dramatically reduced the criminal business of the courts.

People charged with being drunk and disorderly, being vagrants and other minor matters are no longer paraded before a magistrate to be dealt with. They are dealt with by fixed penalties and cautions, which are often later, in the cool light of day, a matter of regret on the part of those who have accepted them. All this, in my view, is leading to the winding- down and eventual abolition of the system of lay magistrates.

The criminal work that remains will then be carried out by professional lawyers known as District Judges (formerly Stipendiary Magistrates).

When I first started practice, there was one Stipendiary Magistrate in Liverpool who sat in the morning and rarely in the afternoon. The court day in the magistrates' court started at 11am and afternoon sessions, apart from family work and spillovers from the morning, were little known.

It is speculative as to whether the lay magistracy will survive in these circumstances for more than a decade or so, as successive governments look to reduce the cost of justice by cutting down expenditure wherever possible.

Many people think this is not a good thing and justice should not depend on the economics but they are fighting a losing battle.

Justice for the individual and society should never be compromised to satisfy the fiscal demands of any government, particularly a caring beneficial government such as New Labour and its successors claim to be.