The first report of the Justice and Security project was published on 14 October 2019. The first major study of magistrates and local courts in England and Wales in at least five years warns that Justices of the Peace (JPs) are facing terminal decline unless new efforts are made to reinvigorate and invest in the role.

The report by The Project for Modern Democracy, an independent think tank, evaluates the strengths of England’s unique lay magistracy model and concludes that, despite challenges, it still provides a valuable community link in a justice system that has become less transparent, less local, and more professionalised. However, the research concludes that, without reform, the role of magistrates will face further decline and the wider contribution they could make to community safety will not be realised.

The report found that:

Major changes to the courts system to centralise administration, along with budget pressures leading to the closure of over 160 courts since 2010, have undercut this vital local institution, and recruitment efforts have not been adequate to maintain JP numbers, leading to more benches sitting as two magistrates rather than three.

The number of sitting magistrates has now fallen to 14,312 – a reduction of approximately 40 per cent in just 7 years. The ageing population of the current crop of JPs also means that nearly a third will have to retire in the next 5 years, creating a demographic cliff-edge that threatens to leave more benches unfilled and the justice system less efficient, and less fair.

The sentencing practices of magistrates’ courts vary considerably, but these courts respond to changing patterns of crime – for example, rising rates of knife crime – earlier than the response seen to similar cases in the Crown Court.

New sentencing measures made available to magistrates in London, such as the sobriety tag which local JPs strongly supported, have been withdrawn because of funding decisions by the Ministry of Justice and the unwillingness of the London Mayor’s Office to maintain the scheme, despite its proven success.

In recent years magistrates have been prevented by the judiciary from engaging with local services and other criminal justice forums that would enable them to understand local issues better and sentence more effectively.

The research considered best practice at home and abroad and sets out proposals for the future of the magistracy to address current shortcomings and enable the institution to fulfil its potential.

It calls on the Government and judiciary to take forward a long overdue consultation on the future of the magistracy as part of a comprehensive strategy to plan for the future role of JPs in the courts system. This exercise is now made more urgent by the falling numbers, new reforms to automate justice to take more cases out of court, and the shifting nature of criminal caseloads requiring new skillsets and more regular sitting experience.

The report suggests that the UK should follow the example of New Zealand by introducing an entirely new cohort of paid, part-time magistrates who would sit more frequently, and be more representative of the community. It proposes a system-wide reform to create a new hybrid, two-tier magistracy, as an evolution of the current model.

Instead of a single cohort of unpaid volunteers who sit no more than 2 days a month, this reform would create two distinct roles: Neighbourhood Magistrates, with a broader role in local justice, alongside a smaller number of new paid Community Magistrates sitting in courts for up to 10 days per month, in order to create a new problem-solving judicial tier. Each type of magistrate would have distinct and complementary roles, and separate powers, obligations and skillsets.

Community Magistrates would be able to develop the problem-solving justice agenda – supported by the senior judiciary but abandoned by the government in 2016 – and exploit their new paid position and more regular sittings to lead these approaches, buttressed by new powers to supervise sentences closely. These new Community Magistrates would be recruited for their diverse life experience and backgrounds and in time might also be eligible for extended custodial sentencing powers, as previously proposed by the Government.

In contrast, Neighbourhood Magistrates would be given a broader community safety remit, for example through repatriating the responsibility for alcohol licensing decisions which were transferred to local authorities under the Licensing Act (2003). They would also be liberated from traditional court buildings to perform some of their roles in more local settings via community justice panels but would have more modest sentencing powers.

Trialling this proposed reform would be necessary to evaluate how well it worked in the English context and to revive the justice devolution agenda which has also not been developed since 2016. The trial should be conducted as a joint venture to build upon the Ministry of Justice’s pact with Greater Manchester. The report proposes a pilot in 2020 of 42 new paid Community Magistrates to do the work of over 400 magistrates in the local court area, with the freedom to adopt new problem-solving approaches with new sentencing review powers.

The report suggests that a whole modernisation agenda for revitalising the wider magistracy and remaking their role in the justice system could be built around this flagship reform. This would include the introduction of new accountability mechanisms so that magistrates’ performance could be assessed for the first time through court user and agency feedback delivering greater transparency, and a more localised model of recruitment and governance involving elected Police & Crime Commissioners. PCCs would become responsible for recruitment of all magistrates for the first time, returning this institution to its local roots and reversing the trend of the last decade to make magistrates answerable to a single national courts agency in London.

Nick Herbert MP, Chairman of the Project for Modern Democracy and a former Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, said:

“The lay magistracy is an incredibly important and historic tier of justice which has been neglected by politicians and policy-makers for too long. This is an interesting report which sets out both the challenges facing JPs and some bold ideas for reform. Without change there is a real danger that the magistracy will face terminal decline.

“I hope that these ideas will kick-start the debate we need over how to reinvigorate the community justice agenda and retool the magistracy so it can meet the challenges of today’s justice system.

“New Zealand’s reforms show that paid, part-time community magistrates are an effective way of update the role of modernising magistrates the magistracy and making them more effective, without losing what makes this civic institution so valuable.”