A Visit to Westminster Magistrates Court

This report has been pen after a confuse words to Westminster Magistrates Court, one of the 700 magistrates courts of England and Wales. A magistrates court is the institution where almost 95 % of on the whole barbarous cases ar being profoundly analysed by approximately 28,000 magistrates. According to Kate Malleson, ˜Magistrates frolic the role of the estimate and control panel combined, in that they apply the impartiality and determine the facts in all(prenominal) case. After they have 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 before long 12 months in shackles 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 taunt. The first thing to be noticed was the positioning of the three about magistrates, sitting in a row. The magistrate in the midd le is called moderate and usually he is doing all the talking. The otherwise two magistrates atomic number 18 called wingers but they all fly the coop together to take the decisions. only when in front of the magistrates is determined the Clerk, who has an important role in magistrates court, advising the magistrates on the law and occasion but only when is necessary, keeps the records of the speak and assist defendants who dont have wakeless advisers by explaining them what is happening. In some cases, there can be only one judge sitting there and they argon called District Judges, who usually sit in busy courts inhabit where they hear cases alone and dont have a qualified Clerk.\nTo get with, magistrates play a really important role in criminal justice remains since they deal with much big number of cases than any other institution, as I say before, almost 95 % of cases, approximately 1.9 million cases per year are being processed at this level, many of them being lowly offences. They play the role of a judge and a control board in the same time, auditory modality very carefully...