In this, my first post of a new year, it would be gratifying to have been able to look back on 2023 with the faint hope that improvements or increased efficiency within the justice system particularly re magistrates courts were just an early sign of better things to expect in 2024. Alas great expectations remain just that.
Judging by retirements and recruitment figures it seems reasonable to deduce that around one third of magistrates have less than five years experience and that the personal, academic and employment profiles of magistrates have changed considerably since my appointment. The result is that few benches have many members who were sitting when their courts were semi independent of government and a certain free thinking was the order of the day. So called post code sentencing lottery by local magistrates has been abandoned for the algorithmic Sentencing Guidelines which appear to be but a stepping stone to "the computer says "X" when sentence is determined.
The last year has seen sentencing maximum of six months increased to 12 months and reduced again to six months. The next few months will herald another fundamental change when magistrates courts will no longer have the option of any custodial sentence for offenders who appear before them. I would imagine that District Judges(MC) who increasingly take a greater proportion of what are termed "high profile" cases will have their noses out of joint. Prison overcrowding and severe court backlogs have meant that the judicial tail is wagging the judicial dog. In Scotland by comparison with its long established independent justice system Justices of the Peace powers of punishment are limited to 60 days' imprisonment or a fine of up to £2,500 or both. With such changes in England and Wales unimaginable even a year ago who`s to say that somewhere in the bowels of Petty France locked in a secure cabinet there is not a Green Paper with government thinking on reducing further the punishment levels open to magistrates and reintroducing custodial sentences in the future with the proviso that only salaried District Judges will in future be able to impose them.
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