It would be presumptuous to say that everyone has now at least a passing acquaintance with the Post Office scandal but for those involved in criminal law there are probably subtle signals that what was known by professionals is gradually becoming if not public knowledge then certainly a situation which has been to a lesser extent part of the civil justice system for many years.
In the magistrates courts where reputations might be at stake miscarriages of justice are unlikely to make headlines. For the uninitiated a bench is usually composed of three magistrates although currently only two person benches seem to be more frequent in recent years. To bring a guilty verdict (on a full bench) a majority must find the prosecution case proved beyond a reasonable doubt but when that is announced in open court there is no acknowledgement that one magistrate might have come to a different conclusion. Surely then it is logical to consider that the bench as a whole unit had that reasonable doubt. A single District Judge (MC) has only his or her own conscience to which to answer.
My own practice after pronouncing a finding of guilt was to advise the offender of the process of appeal. When the verdict was split perhaps I put more emphasis on the detailed manner to go about that appeal. I was unable when I was active and am of the same opinion now as to why a split verdict, at least of guilt, cannot be made publicly. When crown court judges were allowed to accept majority verdicts of 10:2 in 1967 there was general agreement in parliament and legal circles that it was of benefit to the concept of justice not only being done but being seen to be done. It seems illogical that the lower court does not follow the example of the higher court. Even the Supreme Court allows for a dissenting opinion. An interesting essay on this topic can be accessed here.
Current numbers suggest that there were around 5,000 appeals from magistrates courts to the crown court where a judge sits with two magistrates for a re- hearing. The percentage rates of success on appeal were 30% for conviction appeals and nearly 68% for sentence appeals. It seems that the MOJ no longer supplies detailed statistics on such appeals. All this is rather confusing. The latest verified statistics I can find are below:-
Whatever the actual numbers are the principle of dissent should be applied to magistrates courts. There is no justifiable reason to oppose that except for the law for the ordinary citizen to be an increasingly tick box exercise which is a lot cheaper for government than the facade that justice is available for all.
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