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The office of justice of the peace,
or magistrate, dates back to 1361. There are two types of magistrate,
lay and stipendiary.
Lay magistrates are appointed by the Lord Chancellor on the
recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant of a county, or the Council
of a borough.
They are usually people with no previous legal
experience. On appointment they undergo a course of training,
but the main purpose of this is not so much to teach them law
as to train them to act in a judicial manner.
To advise them
on matters of law when sitting, they have the assistance of
a clerk, who may either be a barrister or a solicitor, but is
usually a solicitor.
Lay magistrates are not paid for their work as such, but they
are entitled to claim travel and subsistence expenses. They
work on a part-time basis, sitting once or twice a week. In
the City of London, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen are ex officio
magistrates.
In many large towns and cities there are, either instead of
or in addition to lay magistrates, stipendiary magistrates,
that is paid magistrates who work on a full-time basis. A stipendiary
magistrate is a qualified lawyer, appointed by the Crown on
the recommendation of the Lord
Chancellor, and he has the same powers as a bench of two
or more lay magistrates. Stipendiary magistrates in London are
known as Metropolitan Stipendiary magistrates.
Both the lay and the stipendiary magistrates must retire at
the age of seventy, and both may be removed from office by the
Lord Chancellor for incompetence.
Every magistrates’ court has a clerk, who is a barrister
or solicitor of at least five years’ standing, and whose
main function is to advise the magistrates on matters of law.
He is not concerned with questions of fact, nor with matters
relating to findings of innocence or guilt. In some courts magistrates
seek the opinion of the Clerk on sentencing policy, but the
final decision on sentencing is a matter for the magistrates
alone.
When the Crown Court is hearing an appeal from the magistrates’
court or a committal for sentence, between two and four magistrates
sit with the judge or Recorder,
who presides. The decision of the court may be a majority decision,
but if the court is equally divided, the judge or Recorder has
a casting vote.
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Solicitors Barristers and Lawyers
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