Magistrates ask for greater powers to help cut backlog
Letting lower courts hand out sentences of up to one year would ease burden on judges, Raab told
MAGISTRATES have pleaded for more work, as they say increasing their sentencing powers could help clear court backlogs.
The Magistrates’ Association has proposed they should be allowed to hand out jail sentences of up to one year, double what they are currently permitted.
In a letter to Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, they said it would increase the number of cases handled by magistrates, freeing up judges to concentrate on the major cases and speed up justice.
They have also suggested that defendants could become eligible for more lenient sentences if they gave up their right to a jury trial and agreed for their case to be tried by magistrates.
Bev Higgs, chairwoman of the Magistrates Association, said offering a potential discount of five to 10 per cent of their sentence if they were tried in the lower court was not unprecedented as offenders can already get up to 30 per cent time off through pleading guilty before their trial.
The proposals were made as Ministry of Justice figures showed victims are waiting more than 600 days for justice after a crime, a rise of more than 50 per cent in the past year.
While the magistrates’ backlog of cases are starting to fall, those in the Crown Courts remain high at 60,692, almost double the level of two years’ ago.
The delays in rape cases have been cited as a factor in more than half of victims withdrawing from prosecutions and were highlighted this week by Boris Johnson. He said he wanted to reduce the time to trial in order to improve conviction rates which have slumped below two per cent.
Ms Higgs said: “The Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary [Dominic Raab] have both said that they are anxious to improve the criminal justice system with reference to prosecutions and the time it takes to get offences concerning violence against women and girls to trial.”
She said victims and defendants in “non-priority” Crown Court cases were having to wait until 2023-24 to be heard. “It is not good enough for victims of crime or defendants to have their lives on hold and to have to relive events in court months or even years after they took place,” she said.
“[Magistrates] are well placed to stop sending cases to the Crown Courts if only our jurisdiction could be increased to a 12-month custodial sentence for a single offence. This would ease the burden on Crown Courts, speeding up justice for all.”
She noted that the provision for 12-month sentences was already in the 2003 criminal justice act but had not been activated, suggesting that magistrates had been victims of “silly assumptions that they would start sending everyone to prison”, said Ms Higgs.
“Magistrates courts have the experience, the capacity and the will to be part of a fairly easy solution to get faster justice for people.”
She stressed the idea of discounts if defendants agreed to be tried by magistrates was an idea but the association is planning to convene a major justice symposium next year on whether the “right to elect” trial before a jury should be scrapped.
The right covers cases that can be heard either in magistrates or Crown Court and are distinct from summary offences which can only be considered in the lower court and indictable which automatically go to the higher court.
“It could stop the clogging of Crown Court lists so they can focus on the more serious cases,” said Ms Higgs.
Mr Raab said this week that he believed the backlogs could be restored to pre-pandemic levels within six months to a year through super-courts, Nightingale courts and increased use of video technology.
The Ministry of Justice has previously resisted extending the sentencing powers of magistrates but magistrates believe the continued crisis over backlogs merits a rethink.