The Cost to Justice: Government Policy and the Magistrates' Courts
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Stanley Brodie
2011
Magistrates have been at the heart of the justice system for over 600 years, dispensing justice at the local level and binding people to keep the peace. They do their work for free. The arrangement should be seen as a model for a 'big society' and the voluntary service which the Coalition seeks to promote.
However, as The Cost to Justice: Government Policy and the Magistrates’ Courts explains, the overall independence of the judiciary has been compromised in recent years. Important powers have been transferred to Whitehall officials. The principle of the separation of powers, on which English liberties have rested, has been eroded. The magistrates have not escaped. Their work has been placed under expensive bureaucratic control, and they now face the closure of a third of their courts.
The Ministry of Justice believes this move will make for a more efficient system of justice. But, as Stanley Brodie explains, not only will the system of justice be less fair and accessible, the taxpayer will also have to pay more. A centralised bureaucracy is far more expensive, and less fair, than a system of justice run by high-powered, unpaid volunteers.
The author, a distinguished Q.C., proposes that the programme of closures should be suspended. Control of the courts should revert to the magistrates themselves, and the Ministry should practise what the Coalition preaches.
