Today and for the foreseeable future magistrates of whom around 85% are over 50 years old and over half are more than 60 will be rechecking their rotas and wondering whether they should be thinking of their own health and that of their families or whether the social good and obligation of appearing at court has priority. Considering all are volunteers it is impossible not to assume that many benches will consist of two magistrates and not the usual three for the next few months.
Whilst I was active video links were in operation mainly for bail hearings for prisoners on remand. The expansion of video links has been one of the major initiatives of HMCTS in its "modernisation" programme and has been ruthlessly promulgated by its press relations factory deep in the bowels of Petty France. It seems, however, that such links are hopelessly bedevilled by system failure often at police stations so demonstrating the inability of defendants to be dealt with by the technology on first appearance. The result is that an unknown number of defendants is appearing in person despite their exhibiting some or many symptoms of Covid-19. This is placing many court users in jeopardy and is particularly disturbing for magistrates owing to their age profile as mentioned above. In addition the cells in the court buildings have not necessarily been deep cleaned daily despite their occupation by multiple persons and in some cases their lawyers.
As I have opined recently it would be reasonable to assume that unlike District Judges(MC) who are salaried civil servants some if not many magistrates will take the path of safety and security and decline to fulfil their rota requirements. Indeed the silence, as far as is known on this topic, of the so called six magisterial toadies aka leadership magistrates recently appointed by the MOJ to act as torch bearers for their master is an example of their uselessness as being cast as true representatives of their brethren and confirms this writer`s opinion of their being a fifth column within the magistracy. Considering Twitter is often the first medium of choice for many important organisations to announce policy and/or news the Magistrates Association is outstanding for its public silence on this situation or perhaps it is communicating only with its dwindling membership.
Just perhaps there will be some unpredictable results if there is a courts lockdown. Time will tell as it usually does.
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