BARRISTER`S PREJUDICE AGAINST MAGISTRATES

The first time I put pen to paper in the public forum as a Justice of the Peace   was to sign an article in the Times repudiating prejudice, allegations and slurs towards the institution to which I had been appointed a couple of months previously  and which had been published a few days earlier.  During my time on the bench lawyer friends would occasionally delight in trying to  provoke me by recalling their colleagues frequent use of the term "muppets" in their references to a lay bench.  Scores of articles, speeches, advice, proposals etc from individual lawyers, institutions, policy advisors, pressure groups, politicians and not excluding Uncle Tom Tobley  have suggested with varying degrees of logic, passion and simple prejudice that the magistracy is not fit for purpose and criminal procedures in the lower courts should be presided over by a single District Judge.  Various reasons are usually offered eg cost encompassing greater efficiency of D.J.s, representative nature of J.P.s being essentially white middle class and elderly and lack of competence.  Generally those who hold these opinions argue vociferously for the right to trial by jury for the very lowest level of either way offences but see no contradiction in the single D.J. replacing a mini jury of three magistrates for summary matters. The *figures for appeals at Crown Court  against lower courts` decisions are an illustration of how often J.P.s get it right.   In short whilst there are logical reasons of cost and efficiency between a lay bench and a professional D.J. to be debated it is the old watchword prejudice which drives the argument amongst those barristers who feel they have to kowtow in court to those without a legal qualification.

PREJUDICE:- an unfavourable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favourable or unfavourable. unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group.

PREJUDICE:- prejudgement, or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. The word is often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavourable, judgements toward people or a person because of gender, political opinion, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality, or other personal characteristics.

A perfect example of such self righteous opinion is that of the blogger The Secret Barrister who seeks to promulgate this decades old antagonism against my former colleagues.  Whilst his language is that of the arrogant know all his logic is that of the rabble rouser using individual failings as he sees them to castigate a majority of members of an institution. 

My own opinion presented many times here is that this government or the next for reasons of control will reduce considerably the powers of the lay bench.  Examples are already with us.  These changes will take place not because of magistrates` incompetence but, paradoxically for the Secret Barrister, because overarching government will no longer tolerate a truly independent minded lay bench over which it has little control when it comes to conscience.  The resignation of perhaps thirty J.P.s over the Courts Charge is but an example.  Professional government employed District Judges do not have the freedom to resign over "principle" .  Aye that`s the rub as the great man wrote.    

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