On 18 January 2022, the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, the Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP, announced a doubling of magistrates’ sentencing powers to help ease the backlog of cases in the crown court.
The Magistrates’ Association (MA) has been advocating for this change for more than a decade, so we welcomed the highly practical and sensible move. Magistrates’ new powers will support speedier justice for complainants and defendants by freeing up 2,000 extra days of crown court time every year.
As the only independent voice of the magistracy, the MA’s opinion on this landmark reform was sought by a wealth of print and online national, local and sector-specific publications. Among others, these included: BBC News, Daily Mail, i News, Local Government Lawyer, Oxford Mail, Police Professional, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Justice Gap, The Law Society Gazette, The Mirror and The Times.
Our National Chair, Bev Higgs, also appeared in interviews with BBC News, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio Surrey, LBC, Sky News Radio and Times Radio, and other MA representatives featured on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio Northampton.
We were very pleased to be consulted by such a wide range of outlets—not only to share our pride in having played a key role in securing this change and raise awareness of the vital work of the magistracy (and the MA), but also to dispel the unhelpful misconceptions that were circulating.
