We produce advocacy reports, briefing notes, consultation responses and position statements to support our policy work. Use the search box or filters to find what you're looking for, and drop us a line with any questions.
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Social media guidance for members
The Magistrates’ Association has written this short guide for members who use – or who want to use – social media. It aims to clarify the Judicial Office's updated guidance on using social media, originally issued in October 2024.
The Magistrates’ Association welcomes this critical work to explore options and recommendations for reforming the criminal courts, ensuring cases are handled proportionately and efficiently.
This response outlines our recommendations on how magistrates can contribute to court reforms, alleviating the strain on the crown court and ensuring justice is delivered swiftly and fairly to victims, witnesses, and defendants.
While we welcome this wide-ranging review, we have also raised some concerns. Our response argues for action in three key areas: the need for more constructive, flexible and creative sentencing options to be available; the capacity of the probation service to support more community-based options; and the availability of short custodial sentences.
Our new position statement on half-day sittings is based on our members’ experiences and views. There is considerable variation between benches about accommodating requests for half-day sittings, with some benches allowing them and some not. Half-day sittings enable magistrates with additional commitments like employment, young children, or caring responsibilities to sit – likewise for many disabled magistrates, who may find it difficult to sit for a full day.
Our position statement advances a case for half-day sittings being available to all magistrates – an arrangement that we feel would improve individual experiences for some magistrates and benefit the magistracy as a whole.
Bundles are a particular concern for family magistrates, consuming significant time in preparatory reading outside of the courtroom which must be fit around magistrates’ busy lives. Practice Direction 27A should reflect the need to keep bundles’ contents to salient materials and allow sufficient time for bundles to be read and considered properly. Cases heard by family magistrates also bring specific challenges not replicated at higher tiers, particularly the prevalence of litigants-in-person, and PD27A must provide useful guidance for all court users.
The quality of interpreting and translation services
We submitted written evidence to the House of Lords Public Services Committee on interpreting and translation services in courts, sharing insights gathered from our members. Magistrates reported significant challenges, including frequent booking failures, incorrect language assignments, and limited interpreter availability which led to delays, adjournments, and misunderstandings. Our recommendations to the House of Lords include improving booking processes, expanding interpreter training, enhancing remote technology for accuracy, and exploring the cautious use of AI in interpretation. We also advocated for better interpreter recruitment and training standards, addressing rarer languages, and providing flexibility to support defendants and court staff alike.
In our response to the Sentencing Council’s immigration consultation, we focus on several key areas, including the need for clear guidelines when determining harm factors and the practical challenges in proving criminal intent upon entering the UK. We also highlight discrepancies between statutory sentencing limits and proposed guidelines, particularly regarding the breach of deportation orders. We also call for robust guidance to help magistrates navigate complex cases, such as those involving identity documents, and stress the importance of considering delays caused by the lack of interpreters during court proceedings.
We highlight concerns about the proposed guidelines, particularly regarding dangerous driving, damage caused, and injury or death resulting from such offences. We note that while the guidelines mirror those for dangerous driving, there should be clear distinctions to account for the aggravation of vehicle taking. Additionally, we express concern over the disparity in sentencing for offences causing varying degrees of harm, especially life-changing injuries. We suggest closer alignment with existing driving standards guidelines and emphasise the importance of including factors such as disqualification periods in sentencing.
Every year, hundreds of children are charged with offences that do not reach court until the child has turned 18. This leads to childhood criminality being dealt with in the adult court, which lacks the specialist focus on welfare and preventing reoffending that underpin the youth jurisdiction. We believe that offences committed during childhood should be retained in the youth justice system.
Reflecting hundreds of our members’ insights into hearing Single Justice Procedure (SJP) cases over the last eight years since it was introduced, our position statement highlights that the SJP needs reform if it is to be seen as fair and transparent. We have made twelve recommendations to improve the operation, transparency and fairness of the SJP.
We welcome the proposed Imposition guideline and feel that its sections addressing specific offender cohorts offer valuable sentencing guidance. However, we’ve also called for comprehensive training to help magistrates navigate the lengthy guidance, and that probation services must be fully resourced and supported for effective information sharing in court and to support the guideline's implementation.
We call for better and more granular data about youth remand to ensure that proposed solutions address the reality on the ground and that their success can be monitored. We also call for greater funding for youth court services overall and voice concern about children being remanded by a Saturday court.
Responding to allegations of alienating behaviours
Our response highlights ambiguities in the draft guidance on responding to allegations of alienating behaviours. We propose alternative wording that would ensure that allocation of cases is appropriate and does not overburden judges with cases that can be properly handled by magistrates.
We highlight the inadequate accessibility of magistrates’ court buildings in England and Wales. We urge the Disability Unit to focus attention on improving accessibility in magistrates' courts and related data.
We urge the government to make open justice a guiding principle in all decisions about reform and improvement. We advocate for more publicly available data, particularly data from magistrates' courts.
Supporting earlier resolution of private family law arrangements
We support the introduction of a mandatory mediation requirement with exceptions where necessary. We call for authoritative information provision for separating families and a focus on reducing delay for children.
Our response highlights the need for accessibility provision based in advocacy report ‘Inaccessible courts: a barrier to inclusive justice’. We also raise the need for adequate IT provision, and distinction between family and criminal courts and waiting areas.
We reveal that three quarters of magistrates courts are insufficiently accessible. We identify the barriers this creates for the public and magistrates and make six recommendations to urgently address the systemic issues in the court estate.
Pilot practice direction for domestic abuse protection orders
Our response to suggested reforms to domestic violence prevention orders (DAPO) calls for recognition that DAPO proceedings could be exploited by abusers, for care to be taken around information sharing and confidence in perpetuator programmes.
