The Criminal Courts Flashcards
What qualifies someone to be a magistrate?
They’re not legally qualified.
Applicants must be between 18-65 years of age. Magistrates must retire at 70
Legal knowledge or experience is not required.
They should live or work in or near the area covered by the court.
They must be prepared to sit as a magistrate at least 26 times a year.
They must possess the following six general personal qualities:
1) To be of good character, including having personal integrity, respect the trust of others.
2) to have understanding and communication.
3) to have social awareness. Respect for
Those from different ethnic or social background.
4) maturity and sound temperament.
5) sound judgement, including being able to think logically, weigh up arguments and being objective.
6) commitment and reliability.
Selection of Magistrates
Magistrates’ positions are advertised widely in a range of publications such as newspapers and magazines.
There are also public awareness days in some courts
Applicants must complete and submit the Ministry of Justice application form shall provide preferences.
Applications are considered by the local advisory committee made up of two thuds of magistrates, and one third, non magistrates.
Local advisory committee will check the reference.
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a first interview, mainly assessing suitability based on the six key qualities.
If successful, the candidate will be invited to a second interview which is mainly a practical, based on case studies to test the applicants judgement and decision making, skills on sentencing.
Background checks are made for any conflicts of interest.
After interview, potential appointees are reviewed by the local advisory committee to ensure a good cross section of people in relation to ethnic origin, age, gender and social background ( socio-economic status )
Composition of the bench
Magistrates have been perceived as middle-class, middle-aged and middle-minded and this has some foundation in fact. The Judiciary in the Magistrates’ court (2000) report found that magistrates were overwhelmingly from professional or managerial backgrounds and 40% of them were retired from full time employment. The majority of magistrates are within the 45-65 age range and the appointment of magistrates under the age of 27 is still rare although there are a few notable exceptions. For example, in 2006 a 19 year old law student, Lucy Tate, was appointed making her britains youngest magistrate.
49% are women. ( compared to 10% of professional judges )
6% are from ethnic minority backgrounds - this is reasonably representative of the population as a whole which is about 8%
Training of magistrates
Training is supervised by the Judicial Studies Board. Training is carried out locally, often by the clerk of the court.
1) Initial training, before sitting in court, a new magistrate will undergo introductory training on the basics of the role, after this, he/she will sit in the courts with two experiences magistrates.
2) Mentoring, each new magistrate has a specifically trained magistrate mentor to guide them through their first months. There are formal mentored sittings in the first 12-18 months of service, where the new magistrate will review his/her learning process.
3) Core training, over this first year, further training visits to penal institutions and observations take place, to equip magistrates with the key knowledge needed.
4) Consolidation training, at the end of the first year, consolidation training builds on the learning from sittings and core training. This is designed to help magistrates plan for their ongoing development and prepare for their first approval.
5) First appraisal, about 12-18 months after appointment, new magistrates is appraised. This is to see whether they’re demonstrating that she/he fits the competences. When successful, magistrate is deemed fully competent.
Magistrates continue training throughout their magistrate career, to maintain up to date new legislation and procedures
At the end of this period, new magistrates will need to demonstrate a number of competencies:
Managing yourself
Working as a member of a team
Making judicial decisions
Additional training for youth and family courts.
Role and powers of magistrates.
The work of lay magistrates includes:
In court;
Decide on questions of bail and custody.
Hear evidence in a summary trail and some Either way offences and decide verdict.
Decide on which court an EWO should be heard in.
Decide on sentence for those who plead guilty of were found guilty.
Transfer more serious EWO and all indictable offences to the Crown Court.
Hearing Youth Court cases(specialist magistrates)
Out of court;
Issuing search warrants or arrest warrants.
Granting time extensions for keeping suspects in custody for questioning for the Police
Other roles, such as training and mentoring new magistrates
Community involvement, e.g visits to schools
Advantages of Lay magistrates
Public confidence
Example of active citizenship, example of public involvement in the criminal justice system, reduces need for professional involvement. Tried by ones peers.
British Crime Survey 2010 which reported that 61% of adults thought that the Criminal Justice System was fair.
Few appeals
Workload of the magistrates court is huge, dealing with 2 million cases each year. Despite this, few D’s appeal against magistrates decisions, those who do mostly appeal against sentence not verdict. Very few instances where an error of law is made. (2011 only 79 appeals on points of law to the high court (QBD) and fewer than half these appeals were successful. This suggests that despite the non professions status of magistrates, they do a very good job.
Cost effective
Trails in the magistrates court are relatively cheap. Because lay magistrates are volunteers. Cost effective. Annual expenses amount to about £15 millions ( an average of £500 per magistrate ) given that magistrates try 95% of all criminal cases, the alternative cost of paying professional judges to deal with such a huge caseload would cost a vast amount of the tax payers money. £100 million a year in wages lone. Difficult to recruit that amount of judges.
Social background
A further point is the diversity of magistrates compared to professional judges. magistrates are far more representative of the general population in terms of gender as almost half of magistrates are female compared to 10% of paid judges.
Disadvantages of using lay magistrates
Inconsistency
There is considerable inconsistency in terms of sentencing, granting of bail, granting legal aid ect. Between different magistrates in different areas. For example in 2005, research was carried out in the West of England which showed considerable inconsistencies in sentencing such that custodial sentences for those convicted of ABH in Bristol was nearly double to those convinced in North Devon. Inconsistency continues despite improvements in the training of magistrates and in the provision of sentencing deadlines and remixers bail principles.
Biased in favour of the Police
Magistrates tend to be cases hardened and biased. In addition, Police officers become well known to magistrates. Automatic tendency to believe police evidence. In R v Bingham, a speeding case where the only evidence was that of the motorist and the PC, the chairman of the bench states that where there is a direct conflict of evidence between a D and the police “ my principle.. Has always been to believe the evidence of the police officer “ D appealed and his conviction was quashed.
Social background
while magistrates may represent society in sense of gender, surveys suggest that the magistracy remains fundamentally white, Middle Aged, middle classed, professional and wealthy. Despite the reduction in the minimum age from 27 to 18 in 2004, only 4% are under 40
Who are lay people?
Lay people are people who are not legally qualified; including jurors and magistrates.
Magistrates are part time volunteers who sit as judges in the magistrates court. They deal with all summary offences, e.g common assault, parking and speeding. Criminal damage up to £5000 and some either way offences as well as some other matters(see notes on magistrates’ court.
