Chapter 7

JUSTICE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND IN THE USA

Unit 7.1

Criminal Courts In Great Britain

7.1.1. Magistrates’ courts

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The criminal court structure in England and Wales was created by the Courts Act of 1971 and comprises two levels of criminal courts.

The lower court (or court of first instance) is the magistrates' court, which deals with summary — the less serious — offences: the vast majority of criminal cases, and conducts preliminary investigation into the more serious offences. These more serious offences are mostly tried by the higher court — the Crown court.

Magistrates' courts are local courts.

There are about 700 magistrates' courts in England and Wales, which are open to the public and the media. They usually consist of three to seven magistrates — known as Justices of the Peace (JPs). They are not called “judges” and do not receive promotions.

The magistrates are part-time officials. They hear cases without a jury; receive no salary for their services (only expenses) and, being ordinary citizens, have no legal training.

Magistrates have a very important role to play in their local communities. There are some 30,000 (1999) of them throughout England and Wales. Magistrates are appointed by the Lord Chancellor from names submitted "by local advisory committees and used to be middle- or upper-class people, such as the squire, doctors, retired military officers, landowners and businessmen who were prominent in their local community.

In Central London and some other big cities there are also stipendiary magistrates. These are trained lawyers who work full time and are paid salaries. They usually sit alone in the capacity of professional magistrates to hear and decide a case.

The initial decision to bring a criminal charge normally lies with the police arresting a suspect. Then the police decide whether they have enough evidence to prosecute — to send the suspect for trial. People accused of breaking the law, are usually allowed to leave the police station and remain free until they come to court, as long as they pay ‘bail’. Persons accused of very serious crimes like murder are usually refused bail. An accused must normally appear first/before a magistrates' court.

The large majority of all penalties in magistrates' courts are fines. The most common punishments beside fines are:

• probation (the person placed on probation for a certain period is left free but must be supervised by a probation officer and may have to report to the police station at regular intervals, which restricts his or her movement);

• suspended sentence (the offender given a prison sentence will not serve the sentence unless he or she commits another crime when it will be implemented with more ado);

• community service (the convicted person must spend several hours a week doing useful work in his locality);

• electronic tagging/monitoring (a new experimental development in which the accused person is fitted with an electronic device which cannot be removed and which is connected to a central computer).

Other functions of the magistrates' courts include the hearing of bail applications by persons charged with an offence; certain limited civil matters involving family matters and divorce; the handling of road traffic violations and acting as licensing authorities for public amenities such as restaurants, clubs and pubs.

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