Saving our valuable Justices of the Peace

SIR – It is time we were more honest about magistrates (Letters, August 23). The heart of the problem of recruitment is bad management, stemming from a lack of appreciation of the importance of this vital role in society that helps to bridge the judges and the judged, just as MPS bridge the governors and the governed.

Justices of the Peace can claim travel costs and loss of earnings. This suits salaried people working in personnel departments or as union officials. It also suits those who don’t need to work and (like other voluntary roles) offers them social connections.

It doesn’t suit that increasing sector of the population deemed to be self-employed, who cannot claim loss of earnings because, having arranged to be available for their scheduled sittings, they cannot also claim they have “necessarily lost earnings”. So the pool of magistrates is ageing and shrinking. A modest amount of money is needed to secure the place of the magistracy. We need to pay magistrates a per diem honorarium of, say, £100. They would not become employees; taxation would be straightforward and their voluntary status would be recognised. The lack of suitable magistrates from all social strata would no longer be a problem.

There has been a hidden agenda in government and the judiciary towards the extinction of this non-professional role – to make our magistracy more consonant with other European legal systems: more top-down and more alienating of the citizen.

We should think again. Frank Jurksaitis JP

London SE13