21. Jun. 2010. – 12:27:00
When major participants within
the criminal justice system issue press releases on contentious issues one can
be sure that in the Darwinian tradition they are seeking to survive elements
which they fear could threaten their existences. Of course it is highly
unlikely that eg police forces or the probation service are going to cease
being but it is not unlikely that dark forces buried deep within the sewers of
Whitehall are plotting the extinction of an organisation which this year marks
its 650th year of allowing the sovereign`s law to apply to the people of
England and Wales.
The magistrate at age 650 is a
far cry from his ancestor. He or she is as near an example of a people`s judge
in a people`s court providing people`s justice without there being a Robspierre
or a Lenin within executing distance. He is part of a truly unique system of
judgement by one`s peers which is unlike any other system in this world.
In November The Met Police
Commissioner criticised magistrates for the continual offending of burglars
whilst on bail. This was repeated by the commander of police in
Hounslow on 6th February this year. Press statements of this nature can only be
part of a co-ordinated political position to undermine magistrates` courts
where the default position of offenders pleading not guilty is for them to be
remanded on bail until trial.
Today the Prison Governors'
Association and the National Association of Probation Officers have released
statements in The Independent that
short term jail sentences ie up to six months, should be abolished. The
arguments put forward are self serving citing cost in particular. Each group is
concerned with enhancement of its own position and their joint statement is
nothing short of yet another attempt to devalue the three person magistrates`
bench to speed the departure from our courts of its Justices of the Peace
replacing them with salaried District Judges who already, to the disquiet of
many, sit alone as judge and jury on trials.
By the very fact of their being
unpaid volunteers albeit highly and expensively trained, JPs and their
representative body The Magistrates` Association have traditionally been
reticent about blowing their own vuvuzelas especially when the Association
operates with a shoestring income of about only £1 million and a staff of eight
employees. It will be a sad day if English Justices are reduced to takers of
oaths and town hall decorations and hung out to dry. Be certain the death of
the magistracy as we know it will be a bad day for all who value local justice
for local people. Members of the legal profession personally and
organisationally and others who are sympathetic to this view should make public
their support for the English Magistracy in its present form.
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