IT IS BROKE AND THEY WON`T FIX IT

There`s an old adage, "if it ain`t broke don`t fix it."  Whilst it sounds reasonable advice, on a second reading it becomes obvious that if it is followed there must be preparation for the breakdown which results.  If machinery is allowed to function without maintenance seemingly in fine operating condition it will be a matter of when not if it fails.  Owners of vehicles, bicycles, guns, hydro electric schemes, oil tankers; indeed there are very few man made objects with moving parts  which don`t require inspection and careful attention to allow them to function at maximum capacity for maximum efficiency over a maximum lifetime.   When it comes to organisations similar considerations should apply but they don`t. 

It seems almost monthly that we read of supervisory organisations in many spheres of our lives which have failed in their primary functions of ensuring that those organisations over which they have the power to inspect, impose, change or challenge existing forms of behaviour, supervision, rules or recommendations have failed with the cost of such failure being the ruin of human lives.  We are conditioned to bland statements from such entities when their failings are made public.  Only those with a professional or personal insight into such situations are truly aware of what horror stories lie behind each such announcement.  Very often those individuals go public with their informed comments only when they are retired secure in the knowledge that their pensions are safe.  Ex senior police officers, judges and medical staff are amongst the most prominent but rarely are their wise words more than just a few days` headlines. Within our emasculated and discredited justice system I would opine that the most heinous miscarriages of justice occur at the lowliest courts in the system; the magistrates courts. 

Earlier this century the success rates for appeal of verdicts charged with either way offences  at magistrates courts was as in the table below.

Appeals against sentence or verdict at magistrates courts have consistently been around 45% successful in the following decade. 

Current estimates are that around 24% of all appeals to the crown court are successful.  With the introduction of the Single Justice Procedure in 2015 it might be thought surprising that successful appeals have not shown a marked increase.  It is hard perhaps to stomach in these egalitarian times but only a relatively small percentage of guilty defendants have the means to hire a lawyer to represent them at an appeal before a judge and two magistrates or alternatively the time and intellect to be litigants in person.  

It is within the magistrates courts that the vast majority of offenders is faced with the power of the judicial system; a system which is often stacked against them because the old notion of a "level playing field" or "equality of arms" is but a historical memory.  Returning to my theme, the magistrates courts system is indeed "broke"; broken by deliberate government action and inaction.  This is in some ways similar to the result of matter colliding with  anti- matter which I believe results in the constituent particles destroying each other with a huge energy release. Depending on the colliding particles not only is there a great energy release, but new, different particles may also be produced (such as neutrinos and various flavours of quark.  For matter and anti matter substitute the rights of the individual and the power of the state. The released substances of the collision might be listed as victims` rights, equivocal guilty pleas, perverse verdicts, prisoner suicides, decision making in the near future by A.I., increased wrongful convictions, premature releases and many more. 

If it`s not too late to "service" the damaged courts system and attempt a "fix" there must be a political will which just does not exist.  I fear that lay magistrates might soon be losing my preference as the best way of handling a million plus summary matters every year.  It has become newsworthy that some of the recent local election results in certain areas have come about as a result of foreign practices being employed by immigrant communities. With the numbers of Muslim magistrates or their affiliations being kept secret by the MOJ I fear that political influences could be added to the already undertrained recent cohorts of those hastily added to the bench as a result of deliberate mismanagement.  Urgent consideration should be given to the Presiding Judge directing that all those found guilty be instructed that they have a right to appeal verdict and/or sentence and practical efforts eg leaflets on that process, be handed out in the courts.  As was the case last century applicants to the bench should be obliged to state their political allegiance(s).  Limits of eg 20 years service should be imposed upon magistrates.  Defendants must lose the right in either way offences to choose crown court trial. Consideration must be given to insist that all trials should be presided over by a District Judge [MC] with two magistrate wingers and/or all cases where custody is an option.  

However simple my wish list the images in my crystal ball will remain just that.  The justice  system is broken for all of us apart from oligarchs and their wives fighting over the results of their divorces and the media trying to prise open government`s secret files.  

It is broke and "they" won`t fix it.