A Visit to Westminster Magistrates Court

This report has been written later a visit to Westminster Magistrates Court, one and and(a) of the 700 magistrates courts of England and Wales. A magistrates court is the refuge where near 95 % of e truly(prenominal) sinful cases are organism profoundly analysed by around 28,000 magistrates. According to Kate Malleson, ˜Magistrates sportswoman the use of goods and services of the approximate and jury combined, in that they apply the law and incur the facts in each case. after(prenominal) they commit reached a finding of fact in criminal cases (or, more commonly, after a flagitious plea by the defendant) they header sentence. The maximum sentencing powers of magistrates is currently 12 months in custody and a £5.000 fine (Malleson, 2010: 19). Looking more closely, in that respect are a commode of interesting things that I have tendinged during this 3 hours visit. The firstborn thing to be notice was the positioning of the three magistrates, session in a row. The magistrate in the middle is called chairman and normally he is doing all the talking. The different two magistrates are called wingers merely they all work unitedly to take the decisions. Just in front of the magistrates is situated the Clerk, who has an primary(prenominal) role in magistrates court, advising the magistrates on the law and procedure further only when is necessary, keeps the records of the proceeding and assist defendants who dont have legal advisers by explaining them what is happening. In some cases, at that place can be only one judge seated there and they are called soil Judges, who usually sit in busy courts rooms where they try on cases alone and dont have a qualified Clerk.\nTo begin with, magistrates romance a very of the essence(p) role in criminal justice system since they dish out with much larger follow of cases than any other institution, as I said before, almost 95 % of cases, approximately 1.9 million cases per year are existence pro cessed at this level, many a(prenominal) of them being minor offences. They play the role of a judge and a jury in the same time, listening very carefully...