Lay justice and magistrates
(without a jury). This was the start of an issue that has only grown with the evolution of magisterial justice. As the pressure on Crown Courts grew, the government began to siphon off cases to the Magistrates’ Courts by introducing a new classification of charges that co uld only be tried in the Magistrates’ Courts, removing the accused the right to a jury completely. The basic right of a citizen to have their liberty restricted only by his or her peers was replaced by a downsized courtroom chaired by an under-qualified judge. The Magistrates’ Courts System first flaw is: conviction bias. An anonymous testimony from an ex- magistrate states that magistrates are told in their training course that, ‘They should do everything in their power to secure anything material to prove the felony against the defendant.’ 4 How can a defendant expect to have a just trial when the magistrate’s impartiality is already tainted by an ulterior motive to achieve a conviction? This inquisitorial stance taken by the supposedly impartial magistrate likely comes from the previous form of the Magistrates’ Courts: the Police Courts. These courts were (and many still are) attached to local police stations. Policemen were tasked with arresting, charging, processing and detaining the defendant and were often the primary agency assisting the prosecution. Moreover, this inquisitorial stance was assisted by the magistrates who used their powers to summon prosecution witnesses to the stand through court mandates or blocking the presentation of evidence that could aid the defence. Even now many barristers report that older magistrates slip into their old habits referring to the members of the court in the possessive determinant; ‘our barrister and our policeman’. It would appear that the Magistrates’ Courts are anything but fair and adversarial. One magistrate even stated that ‘my principle in such cases [in which it is the word of an officer against a defendant] has always been to believe the evidence of the police officer and therefore we find the case proved’ 5 . If a similar situation occurred in the Crown Court it is highly likely that there would be some disagreement amongst the 12 jurors and thus the case would not be proved as the accused is innocent until proven guilty, whereas in certain magistrates courts it appears that the undoubting magistrate’s opinion is final. These injustices are masked by the figures produced by the Magistrates’ Courts themselves. The Magistrates’ Courts have a 64% conviction rate compared to the Crown Courts’ 52.2%. 6 However, government statistics are boosted by magistrates proceeding to trial without a defendant present and often disregarding clerk recommendations to achieve a swifter trial. Despite the attempts of the ANew Framework for Local Justice initiativ e that aimed to ‘alter the relationship between the lay magistracy and their qualified clerks’ , 7 clerks and barristers continue to report regular misinterpretations of points of law. Secondly, the Magistrates’ Courts System is crumbling under the financial pressures of austerity. Over the last decade the Ministry of Justice (the MoJ) has been systematically defunded. From 2010 to 2016 the MoJ lost a third of its budget due to David Cameron’s harsh austerity measures in an attempt to shrink the budget deficit. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) employed 8304 people in 2010, in 2016 that number had fallen by 32% to just 5639 full time employees. 8 TheMagistrates’ Courts still managed to produce the same amount of convictions. One would expect a similar fall in the amount of cases processed over this period and the lack of change shows the mentality of magistrates. Convictions 4 The Secret Barrister Anonymous (2018), quote given in confidence. 5 The Secret Barrister Anonymous (2018), quote given in confidence. 6 Office for National Statistics (2018). 7 Reforming the Role of Magistrates: Implications for Summary Justice in England and Wales by Jane C. Donoghue (2014). 8 Office for National Statistics (2016).
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