GUIDANCE ON JUDICIAL CONDUCT FOR J.P.s

The other day I was reading the blog of a criminal lawyer who had received comments from a man who felt he had been short changed by the presiding magistrate during a recent court exchange. It would not be an understatement to consider that rules applying to the judiciary in general and the magistracy in particular must be the most constraining ever devised for a body of professionals. An immediate response would be that such people who are often dealing with the fine tuning of the English language require the finest of fine tuning in documents designed to ensure that their behaviour and actions both inside and outside the courtroom are beyond any reasoned criticism. On the other hand the more that is specified the wider the net into which people can be caught for reasoned or unreasonable criticism.

Be that as it may these documents are what we as Justices of the Peace must live with. They are available here and here.