My previous post last week was concerning the government press release on its proposal to appoint 6,000 new magistrates; a rate of recruitment never previously attempted. Since then I have paused to consider this activity and its possible repercussions.
Those who have spent more than five minutes inside a magistrates’ retiring room will recognise the familiar pattern: a problem created by years of neglect is suddenly rediscovered and the conclusion is presented as a bold new vision rather than a belated attempt to patch over the consequences of earlier decisions. It is a target dressed up as a solution.
The magistracy has been shrinking for years. Recruitment was paused in many areas, benches were merged and experienced colleagues quietly retired without replacement. The result is a system now scrambling to fill the very gaps it engineered. The MoJ’s sudden enthusiasm for replenishing the ranks is rather like a landlord who ignored a leaking roof for a decade and now wonders why the ceiling has collapsed. The answer, naturally, is a “major recruitment drive”. To understand why this matters one must first appreciate what a magistrate actually is, not in the brochure sense but in the functional one. The lay magistrate performs his/her tasks without legal qualifications, supported only by the advice of a legal adviser, the training provided under the Magistrates' National Training Initiative and whatever measure of wisdom and life experience they bring to the bench themselves.
Good judgement is rarely an accompaniment of urgency. The question that matters is whether rushing to recruit thousands of new magistrates will reduce standards. The magistracy has been chronically under recruited for the better part of two decades. Numbers have fallen from approximately 30,000 in the early 2000s to around 14,000 today. Courts have struggled with capacity; backlogs, already severe before the pandemic, became catastrophic during it and the Ministry of Justice eventually conceded that something had to be done. The decision to raise the mandatory retirement age from 70 to 75 was one response. This expansion of recruitment is another.
The uncomfortable truth is that history, structure and recent experience all suggest that the risk is not only real but familiar. One of the more persistent myths repeated in official literature is that the magistracy forms part of the “independent judiciary”. Judicial in function, yes: independent in structure: no. Since the early 2000s a series of reforms, the Auld Review, the Courts Act 2003, and the creation of HMCTS have steadily centralised control. Local Magistrates Courts Committees were abolished. Bench autonomy was curtailed. Administrative power shifted to civil servants. Listing, training, deployment and recruitment are now firmly under HMCTS management. This matters because independence is a safeguard against political pressure. When independence is diluted pressure can seep in. And pressure is exactly what a target of 6,000 new magistrates creates. Targets have a way of distorting behaviour. When the number becomes the goal the quality becomes the casualty.
There is precedent for exactly this kind of quality dilution when volume targets dominate as those with long memories of the bench will recall. The late 2000s saw another surge prompted by falling numbers. Advisory Committees reported shortened interviews, reduced panel diversity and increased reliance on paperwork. New magistrates resigned early at higher rates, often citing inadequate preparation. The Justice Committee, never known for hyperbole, warned that recruitment pressure risked “lowering the bar”. The 2016–2019 period brought a recruitment freeze followed by a sudden reopening. Advisory Committees were reduced in number but expected to process more candidates. Training capacity was stretched. Some new magistrates sat before completing all recommended training. The current drive shows early signs of the same pattern. Interview times have been reduced in some areas. More new magistrates require additional mentoring. Training capacity is stretched. Benches with three inexperienced magistrates are no longer hypothetical. None of this amounts to a crisis but it is evidence of strain and strain is where standards slip.
Court closures over the past fifteen years have dramatically reduced the number of venues available and while sitting days have been extended in some areas the simple truth is that judicial competence requires regular and meaningful sitting experience. A magistrate who sits only infrequently [minimum required is 26 half days] is a magistrate whose skills atrophy, whose confidence is limited and whose decision making is more, not less, susceptible to the kinds of errors eg inconsistency, over reliance on legal adviser direction, failure to probe the evidence that undermine the quality of justice.
So will rushing to recruit 6,000 magistrates reduce standards? The honest answer is that it could and history suggests that it has before. Those who care about the lay magistracy and about the quality of justice delivered in the magistrates court, should be asking hard questions now while there is still time for the answers to shape practice. The magistracy is one of the quiet pillars of the justice system. It deserves careful stewardship, not hurried expansion. Numbers matter but standards matter more. If the MoJ wants 6,000 new magistrates it should take the time to ensure they are the right 6,000.
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