Every day, the Magistrates’ Association (MA) advocates on behalf of its members. Our national officers, together with our five policy committees and supported by our small staff team, cover a wide range of issues that matter most to our members and represent the organisation on external bodies. We also speak to the media on our members’ behalf about the issues that matter most to them and clear up as many misconceptions about magistrates and their work as we can.
Since our last advocacy update in February, we have prioritised the following issues.
Review of magistrates’ expenses
The MA has been calling for a wholesale review of magistrates’ expenses for several years, as we believe that the current system is no longer fit for purpose. In a survey of nearly 1,400 members in 2022, three-quarters of the respondents said that they were left out of pocket as a result of being a magistrate. Not only is this unfair, but it also affects the diversity of the magistracy, as it particularly hits those who cannot afford to make up the difference.
We were therefore pleased that at our annual conference in November 2024, Lord Ponsonby, a minister in the Ministry of Justice, announced there will be a review of the expenses system starting this year and concluding next year. We have since met with officials at the Ministry of Justice and have begun to collect evidence to present to the review when it starts.
Interpreting services in the courts
In March, The House of Lords’ Public Services Committee published its report, ‘Lost in Translation?’, reviewing the state of interpreting services in courts. These were found to be “unacceptable” and presenting a “significant risk to the administration of justice” with a disconnect between government objectives, contractors’ belief in the services being delivered, and frontline experience. The report also highlights the lack of an effective complaints system, unreliable performance data, and inadequate payment for interpreters.
The MA submitted evidence to the committee with recommendations for system improvements, including strengthening booking systems, improving identification of language needs, and standardising and improving interpreter training.
The Times Crime and Justice Commission report
The MA is proud to have played a part in the Times Crime and Justice Commission’s report published in April, following its year-long inquiry. Their proposal to introduce a new intermediate court reflects a growing consensus that magistrates can and should play a greater role in easing pressure on our overwhelmed crown courts. While the Commission has no official status and the government is not obliged to act on its recommendations, some of those recommendations may feature in the Leveson report, due for publication in the spring or summer this year.
Find out more in our press release.
Magistrates’ recognition: our meeting with Shaun Davies MP
Last week, our chief executive Tom Franklin met with Shaun Davies MP to discuss our work on magistrates’ recognition. This is an area we have focussed on since members voted in favour of an annual general meeting motion in 2023 for a Long Service Medal. We discussed the need for proper and full recognition and support for magistrates, and discussed his Parliamentary cross-party campaign for a magistrates’ long service medal. Mr Davies committed to keeping us apprised of developments in his campaign.
Local Justice Areas and governance consultations
Since the last advocacy round-up, the long-awaiting Local Justice Areas consultation has been published, with responses due by Monday 23 June. The MA has been comprehensive in its response to this consultation: we’ve run several roundtables with bench chairs and family panel chairs to bring their views together and assist with our review of the document. Two well-attended webinars gave almost 300 members the chance to tell us their views, and many more of you have emailed us with your thoughts.
This week, we published our position statement on the consultation. This will help members make their own submissions and inform our submission too. For more information about the consultation and to keep up-to-date with our progress, take a look at our dedicated webpage.
In early May, the Judicial Office published its consultation paper on the review of governance of the magistracy. We’re reviewing the details of the proposal to see whether they support the MA’s key principles of local justice, support for bench chairs, election of magistrate leaders and open justice, but we welcome the review’s aim to simplify the governance structure and avoid unnecessary duplication. You can find further information about this consultation here.
Media coverage
Since February, we have also secured dozens of pieces of media coverage on topics including court backlogs and reforms, family magistrates, magistrates’ recruitment and the regulation of private prosecutions.
In March, Tracy Sortwell JP, chair of our family court committee, wrote an opinion piece for Politics Home, responding to an article suggesting that family magistrates should not hear private law cases. Read our response in which we explain and defend the role of family magistrates.
In the same month, our chief executive, Tom Franklin, was on BBC Radio 4’s The Law Show, to discuss the court backlogs and the structural reforms that we’re suggesting to reduce them. Listen to the segment here from 07:40.
Again in March, one of our deputy national chairs, Jacqui MacDonald-Davis, appeared in several media outlets, urging employers to support their staff to become magistrates.
This month, we responded to the government’s review of the regulation of private prosecutors and made recommendations in key areas that we believe will improve transparency, accountability, and public confidence in the Single Justice Procedure, as well as in private prosecutors more generally. We are pleased that our response was reported in outlets including the Evening Standard, MSN UK, Solicitors Journal and Yahoo UK.
Again this month, Val Castell, chair of our youth court committee, appeared on BBC Radio Bristol to answer whether magistrates and judges have ever used a gavel in court in the UK. Listen to the segment from 2:51:14.
We have also responded to the remarks of Sarah Pochin MP, who is a former magistrate, on “two-tier justice”. She claimed magistrates had been told that they couldn’t send certain ethnic minorities to prison. We highlighted that the decisions that magistrates make – whether that is to grant bail, impose a community sentence, remand someone, or impose a jail sentence – follow strict, publicly-available guidelines in handling cases, to ensure decisions are as unbiased as possible. Our response was featured in several outlets including Cheshire Live, the Chester Standard, MSN UK, Runcorn & Widnes World and Yahoo UK.
