Magistrates’ courts

The jurisdiction of the magistrates’ courts includes both civil and criminal elements. It is almost entirely exercisable only at first instance, but some very limited elements of civil jurisdiction involve hearing appeals.

The magistrates’ civil jurisdiction at first instance does not include either contract or tort, but does include a very mixed bag of aspects of administrative law. These relate especially (but not exclusively) to the topics of highways and public health, and are largely left over from the time when the magistrates exercised many of the functions that are now exercised by elected local authorities.

Similarly, the appellate jurisdiction of the magistrates is almost entirely limited to administrative law, with a particular focus on appeals against certain decisions of local authorities in matters such as public health, highways and licensing.

When sitting as family proceedings courts, the magistrates’ civil jurisdiction is at first instance only, and includes a variety of aspects of child welfare and family law, but does not include divorce.

The magistrates’ criminal jurisdiction includes both trials (including guilty pleas) and sending people to the Crown Court, either for trial or for sentence. When sitting as youth courts, the magistrates’ criminal jurisdiction involves defendants who are under the age of 18.

Most magistrates are not legally qualified (or, to use the more formal vocabulary, and putting it the other way round, they are lay) and are not paid for their services. However, some are both legally qualified and employed on a full-time, salaried basis. The latter were known for many years as stipendiary magistrates, but are now known as District Judges (Magistrates’ Courts). In practice, lay magistrates tend to rely heavily on their legal advisers for advice on the law, although technically they decide both the law and the facts.

Magistrates have no particular style and title as such, although they may put JP after their names. (JP stands for Justice of the Peace, which is an alternative, somewhat more formal and ancient, synonym for magistrate.) When addressing a bench of magistrates, the formal mode of address is Your Worships, but in practice many advocates address the entire bench through the chair, in which case the form of address is Sir or Madam, as the case may be.