A Visit to Westminster Magistrates Court

This report has been scripted after a regard to Westminster Magistrates Court, one of the 700 magistrates royal courts of England and Wales. A magistrates court is the institution where almost 95 % of any vicious cases argon being profoundly analysed by more or less 28,000 magistrates. According to Kate Malleson, ˜Magistrates runaway the role of the essay and control board combined, in that they apply the court-ordered philosophy and determine the facts in each case. After they arrest reached a verdict in criminal cases (or, more(prenominal) commonly, after a guilty plea by the defendant) they pass sentence. The maximum sentencing powers of magistrates is shortly 12 months in delay and a £5.000 fine (Malleson, 2010: 19). Looking more closely, there ar a lot of interesting things that I have assisted during this 3 hours vi get. The first thing to be noticed was the positioning of the tercet magistrates, sitting in a row. The magistrate in the middle is called prexy a nd usually he is doing all the talking. The early(a) two magistrates argon called wingers but they all invent together to take the decisions. yet in front of the magistrates is primed(p) the Clerk, who has an important role in magistrates court, advising the magistrates on the law and mathematical process but only when is necessary, keeps the records of the minutes and assist defendants who dont have legal advisers by explaining them what is happening. In well-nigh cases, there can be only one judge sitting there and they atomic number 18 called District Judges, who usually sit in busy courts room where they hear cases alone and dont have a qualified Clerk.\nTo buzz off with, magistrates play a in truth important role in criminal justice carcass since they deal with much large number of cases than any other institution, as I express before, almost 95 % of cases, approximately 1.9 million cases per year are being processed at this level, many of them being claw offences . They play the role of a judge and a venire in the same time, perceive very carefully...