There is currently a heated debate around proposed reforms to criminal justice, and with that has come unfair criticism of the vital role magistrates play in the justice system.
For example, a recent missive expressed concern that 41 per cent of guilty verdicts and 47 per cent of sentences in magistrates’ courts are overturned by the crown courts upon appeal. It’s a statistic we’ve seen used several times by critics of the government’s criminal court reforms to cast doubt on the ability of magistrates’ courts to deliver justice in place of some jury trials. Indeed, Fiona Rutherford, Chief Executive of Justice, has even suggested that such data could mean ‘deficiencies in decision-making.’
Even more concerning is one commentator’s assertion that magistrates “go wrong in 49% of sentencing cases”. It is unclear what is meant by “go wrong” or even where this statistic comes from. Broad statements such as these mislead the public into thinking that nearly half of magistrates’ decisions on sentences are “wrong”, which is categorically not the case.
Another key fact routinely omitted, however, is that appeals from magistrates are very low in the first place. In 2025, only 5,595 – or just over a 0.5 per cent of the around 1.1 million cases that magistrates heard that year – were appealed. Of those 5,595 appeals, 2,315 (or 41 per cent of the appeals) were against the verdict and 2,599 (47 percent) were appeals against the sentence. It should also be noted that these are all appeals from the magistrates’ courts. District judges (DJs) are paid judges who also hear cases in the magistrates’ courts – alone and without juries – and have done so for many years. Some of the appeals will be against the verdict and sentence handed down by DJs – we don’t know how many, because the data does not separate between them and magistrates.
Criminal courts in England and Wales are in crisis, with some crown court trials currently being listed for 2030. This is devastating for victims, witnesses, and defendants, who face lengthy waits for their day in court.
Something needs to change, and magistrates are a vital part of that. Public involvement in justice is a key pillar of our criminal justice system, and this is something that magistrates provide. Magistrates are ordinary members of the public who volunteer their time to hear cases. They are trained to do their magistrate duties, but they are not paid a salary, and without them the justice system would grind to a halt.
Currently, over 90 per cent of all criminal cases are heard by magistrates – they are the backbone of our justice system, exemplified by the government’s plans to extend their sentencing range from 12 to 18 months, taking pressure off the huge backlog of the most serious cases in the crown courts.
Of course, this increase in workload will need to be fully resourced, and the government’s £247 million extra funding for the crown and magistrates’ courts, as well as its ambitious magistrate recruitment campaign, are welcome. But to deliver efficient justice, the government must also recruit more court staff overall – especially legal advisers and the probation service – and pay them better. A long-term and strategic plan for the recruitment, retention and recognition of magistrates is essential so that people from all walks of life will want to volunteer as a magistrate, and will not be left out of pocket for doing so.
The government has ambitious plans to reform the justice system to speed up justice, and magistrates are willing an able to play a key role.
Whilst these plans are not universally popular, using misleading statistics to criticise magistrates and cast doubt on their abilities, is unfair to the more than 14,600 magistrates who volunteer their time to administer justice across England and Wales.
