UK Law Articles
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The Times
November 15 1999
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Lay magistrates
From Mrs Judith Beloff
Sir, The proposed review by the Government of the lay magistracy will be welcomed if it is designed, as your report suggests (news in brief, November 9; see also report, November 11), to make the system more efficient, but not if, as many fear, it is a stalking- horse for abolition.
The involvement of persons other than professional lawyers in the administration of justice should breed confidence in the system. Justices of the Peace are nowadays highly trained, unpaid volunteers for public service. If JPs go, are juries to be next? It is successive government cuts and consequent court closures that are responsible for impairing the identification of lay justice with local justice.
The review should concentrate on the adequate funding and staffing of those professional agencies responsible for bringing cases to court. The justices are dependent on the quality of information they are given, and cannot proceed safely or speedily to judgment otherwise. Give us the tools and we will get on with the job.
Yours faithfully,
JUDITH BELOFF,
The President's Lodgings,
Trinity College, Oxford OX1 3BH.
November 11.
From Mr Roger Middleton
Sir, Robert McFarland (Law, November 9) states that our system of lay magistracy is "undemocratic and unrepresentative". What, then, are we to expect if it is to be replaced by professional lawyers appointed also from a (presumably) comfortable, middle-class background?
He believes that stipendiaries are more efficient and cost-effective. That may be so, but democratic? A stipendiary sitting alone acts as judge, jury and sentencer on each matter in court and considers no dissenting opinions on either fact or law.
Mr McFarland is right to say that the Lord Chancellor could take a number of steps to reorganise the administration of criminal justice in this country, many of which would improve efficiency.
However, the justification for the lay bench is the same as for the jury - trial by one's peers. Remove the former and the latter could easily follow.
Yours faithfully,
ROGER MIDDLETON
(Lecturer),
Faculty of Law,
Southampton Institute,
East Park Terrace,
Southampton SO14 0YN.
roger.middleton@solent.ac.uk
November 10.
