A Visit to Westminster Magistrates Court

This reputation has been written afterward a visit to Westminster Magistrates Court, oneness of the 700 magistrates courts of England and Wales. A magistrates court is the institution where roughly 95 % of each(prenominal) felonious cases are creation deeply analysed by approximately 28,000 magistrates. agree to Kate Malleson, ˜Magistrates play the character reference of the value and jury combined, in that they go for the jurisprudence and determine the facts in each case. After they surrender reached a verdict in criminal cases (or, more comm provided, after a guilty defense by the defendant) they pass sentence. The maximal sentencing powers of magistrates is currently 12 months in custody and a £5.000 fine (Malleson, 2010: 19). smell more closely, in that respect are a lot of fire topics that I watch help during this 3 hours visit. The first thing to be noticed was the attitude of the three magistrates, sitting in a row. The magistrate in the meat is call ed chairman and normally he is doing all the talking. The other 2 magistrates are called wingers but they all work together to conceive the decisions. Just in trend of the magistrates is situated the Clerk, who has an important part in magistrates court, advising the magistrates on the law and procedure but 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, there arouse be only one judge sitting there and they are called District Judges, who usually sit in busy courts rooms where they hear cases solo and dont have a drug-addicted Clerk.\nTo begin with, magistrates play a very important lineament in criminal legal expert system since they deal with lots larger number of cases than both other institution, as I said before, almost 95 % of cases, approximately 1.9 million cases per category are being tasteful at this level, many of them being minor offences. They play the role of a judge and a jury in the homogeneous time, listening very carefully...