Magistrates : The Backbone Of The Criminal Justice System

The Magistrates’ role was to hear the evidence of distinct cases, criminal or civil matters and decide whether the accused is guilty or not guilty to an offence as charged and decide the penalty that will be given to those that are found guilty or plead guilty to an offence. Moreover, the Magistrate determined whether a case should go to a different court or to adjourn the case to another date.

Lay people are people who don’t get paid and who are not qualified; they are volunteer’s, lay people in the law are the magistrate and the jury and I will be explaining their role and the advantages and disadvantages of having lay people get involved with the legal system.

The criminal courts are responsible for determining the guilt or innocence of the person that is accused (Griffiths, 2015, p.147). As well as the courts are supposed to conclude the appropriate sentence while protecting their rights of the accused. The outcome that comes from the criminal courts is that the judgement is made to be fair, impartial and no political intrusion. Furthermore, the main focus of the courts is the find the fundamental problems, the interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration and the accountability to the community. (Griffiths, 2015, p.147). The court is supposing to keep the fairness and equality through the society.

Pass 4- Describe the role of lay people in criminal cases and Distinction 1- Evaluate the effectiveness of lay people in the English courts

Lay people are extremely useful individuals within the civil and criminal courts within the English legal system. The most influential lay people are the Lay Magistrates and the Jury who have important roles with the legal system. Magistrates usually deal with most cases that are heard within the criminal system. They are the decision makers as to guilt or innocence making 97-99% of all cases while on the other hand 1% of cases are heard with a jury present. This shows us that those that are not legally qualified make most decisions regarding the criminal justice system, which means that they are ordinary people who hail

Throughout this section of my assignment I will evaluate the effectiveness of Lay people within the courts.

Merit –compare and contrast the role of judges ,lawyers and lay people within the English courts.

Magistrates are volunteers who hear cases in courts in their community. Each case is usually heard by 3 magistrates, including a magistrate who is trained to act as a chairperson

The basic division in the structure of criminal courts is between the lower criminal courts – the local courts, Children’s court and Coroner’s court – and the higher criminal courts – the District Court and the Supreme Court. In observing proceedings at the Local, District and Supreme Courts over a period of three days a number of aspects of the criminal justice system were made apparent. The administration, processes and practices of the criminal trial are extremely varied dependent upon the level of criminal court being observed. The distinctions between the workings of the two courts revealed a number of the differences between summary proceedings and trial upon indictment. The cases observed served to

However, under further analysis, it becomes apparent that the verdict acts more as a deterrent rather than an upstanding legal configuration. The legal system, for the average person in New South Wales, is only a figure of authority that deters the individuals from breaking the law, which some may say is what it is there to do. Conversely, we need it to do more than that, we need it to properly meet our requests when we are involved in legal

The clerk otherwise known as the legal adivisor has to be qualified as a barrister or solicitor for at least five years. The clerk’s duty is to guide the magistrates on the question of law, practice and procedure. The clerk can not assist in the decision making and should not normally retire with the magistrates when they make their discisions. Clerks deal with ruotine admistrative matters such as issuing warrents for arrest, extend poilce bail, adhourn criminal procedings and deal with Early Adminisitrative Hearings. As lay magistrates perform an important role by being in charge over the vast majority of criminal cases, they enjoy the same advantage of immunity from suit as the rest of the judiciary as highlighted in Waltham Forest (1986) whereby the Court of Appeal held that

This essay will discuss the role of the magistrate and jury in the English and Welsh legal decision-making process. It will assess both the advantages and disadvantages of both mechanisms and give an opinion on the contribution they make in the process.

Magistrates ' Courts tend to be less intimidating and easier to understand, influenced by the use of lay people,

Members of the legal profession are claiming that changes to the availability of legal aid brought about by the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 could cause harm to the rule of law. The Act it is claimed creates an environment in which those who, without the financial resources to access justice will be denied access to justice. In principle the rule of law is intended to ensure that the law is just, accessible to all and that it is enforceable. That is to say, everyone should be able to enforce their legal rights, have access to legal advice and have access to some form of adjudication if they have a legal claim. The high cost of obtaining legal advise and bringing claims to the courts is an obstacle to the vast majority and therefore, the vast majority of the population require financial assistance in order to obtain effective access to justice.

Lay magistrates are very important to the legal system in England and wales. Lay magistrate’s also known as ‘Justices of the peace’ are volunteers in Magistrates courts as judicial officers. There are 21,500 lay magistrates currently in England and wales. Combined with professional magistrates in a magistrate’s court they take up to 95% of cases involving criminal charges . This essay will be investigating the actual importance of them as well as recommendations on diversifying the bench for the Lord Chancellor.