For centuries magistrates were chosen from a small select group of local worthies to adjudicate over a local population generally when the crimes committed did not require an indictment. Defendants were tried summarily. By the late nineteenth century the summary courts were dealing with twenty times as many cases as the jury courts. This included an increasing use of pre-trial hearings - a kind of pseudo-trial in which magistrates evaluated the evidence in cases that strictly speaking should have been forwarded to the jury courts without review. In 1166 King Henry II issued the Assize of Clarendon which required non-King's Bench judges to travel the country to hear cases. This established the system of judges sitting in London while others traveled the country, known as the "assizes system". It has been within the magistracy that the concept of local justice has survived and even that concept is being whittled away with non local District Judges being now a common and necessary fixture of the magistrates courts system. And yet the MOJ still propagates that notion of "local justice for local people". It could be argued that as it was when I was appointed, a magistrate`s jurisdiction was limited to the area in which s/he resided. All that changed a decade or more ago when the whole country was deemed an individual`s jurisdiction thus allowing, if and when needed, out of county JPs to fill sittings. The professional judiciary have no such locality requirements for appointment.
Since Covid and following on from the closure of half the country`s magistrates courts JPs` numbers have fallen from a peak of 30,000 20 years ago to around 14,000 currently. Now as with decimated police numbers the MOJ is trying desperately to recruit more members of the lay bench. Millions of pounds are spent on advertising and much more in investigating the dozens of facts about each applicant`s background, parenthood, religion, occupation and what they have for breakfast. Is it any wonder that so few people are willing to put themselves through such filters for up to two years just to give of their free time 13 days annually on the bench and almost as many in training. As an example the recruiting organisation for the South East of England has published this standardised recruitment advertisement.
Towards the end of the last century an academic study [of which sadly I can now find no trace] estimated that if District Judges sat without a legal advisor or clerk instead of lay benches the costs would be about equal to the cost of magistrates` expenses and training. Many criminal lawyers would welcome such a change. Whether the public would be equally receptive is another matter. Nobody has ever bothered to inquire.
Last week I commented on the case of His Honour Judge (HHJ) Martin Davis who was castigated by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office. Reading the first few statements of that office`s October`s findings I find it difficult to understand how those JPs were able to be appointed in the first place. Whatever the findings they seem to have had underlying traits which should have been teased out much earlier in the process. Perhaps they were appointed long before the current fine tuning which is in place although that details on who and what they have been and are now.
It seems obvious that all the supposed brains at Petty France don`t know what to do with lay magistrates. As I have posted here in times past, they have treated them like the Grand Old Duke of York treated his soldiers; he marched them up to the top of the hill and marched them down again except the hill involved is that of making 12 months custody for a single offence available. "Yes it is but then no it isn`t". My sentiments on this subject have crystalised in the last few years. The more desperate the demand for Justices of the Peace the more the likelihood of the quality of applicants reducing. Whether they will wither on the vine as increasing numbers of DJs are appointed or become add ons to a new form of lower courts system is unknown. But the current situation is surely that sign of a system`s eventual demise.
No comments:
Post a Comment