5 YEARS RETIRED

Tomorrow, the ides of March, is forever noted in history as the day when Julius Caesar met his bloody end. Tomorrow, as in the last five years, will mark the anniversary of my final sitting as a magistrate. I hadn`t quite reached my sell by date but owing to the impending imposition of having to pronounce to all convicted offenders  the terms of the iniquitous Criminal Courts Charge dreamed up by that ministerial court jester failing Grayling I had decided to exit stage left a month or two prematurely.  

Currently there are appeals in the media from the MOJ; "anyone can become a magistrate": as trite a slogan as the weasels in the Petty France basement have yet conceived. This is how a society beset with anxieties that it does not appear to be sufficiently diverse at work, rest or play seeks to anoint itself with a self righteous shower of  the holy oil of equality.  I was appointed in my mid fifties when my secure financial position allowed me to offer a minimum of around two weeks full time on the bench per annum.  It wasn`t long before I realised that especially for chairmen that minimum sitting requirement was totally inadequate for even the most respected colleagues to become truly competent. Today the minimum requirement is unchanged and that is no surprise.  In order for the lay bench to continue in its present limited form the imposition of extra sitting days would stimie the enthusiasm of even the most ambitious JP.  But there is another view that in the long term government would not be sorry to see the demise or at the very least the diminution of the magistracy in its present form. District Judges (MC) being full time civil servants are beholden to said government for putting bread on their tables.  They are less likely to strike a path of even minor deviation from the path set out for them. When my court began having before it some of those charged subsequent to the riots of 2011 advice from the Deputy Justices Clerk was that they were to be sent to the crown court if they were pleading not guilty to an either way charge. No "ifs" and no "buts"; those were our instructions at pre court briefings.  On a particular occasion when I was chairing in such a matter my colleagues and I refused to follow that instruction despite our respected clerk making the official advice public. To protect her from any ramifications when we accepted jurisdiction we expressly exonerated our clerk from any failure to advise us in accordance with her duty.  That, in my opinion, is the value of the magistracy but unfortunately in my humble opinion we are unlikely to have that system of jurisdiction in its current format in another decade. 

It is not unlikely that by this time next year the retirement age for all judicial officers will be raised to 75.  This will mean that the opportunities for increasing the numbers of younger magistrates will be reduced.  In any event to expect an 18 year old, as is the current minimum age for magistrates, to possess the wisdom to sit in judgement on his/her fellow citizens is a fatuous nod to the equally fatuous notion of equality for its own sake. Future historians will look back at the century following the 1960s as one where reason was given up to mob culture: where the louder the voice the greater the influence in law as in other segments of our society.