Magistrates Courts

This is a fascinating article about the battle lines concerning the dispensing of local justice.

I did some research about the rural impact of Magistrates Courts last year and believe it or not the locational background to their distribution is that no-one should be more than a day’s horse ride away from one. Under new proposals 150 are due to close.

Not that my experience of closing magistrates courts is all bad. I was involved in converting a court in Caistor (Lincolnshire) into a super community facility some years ago.

Some communities however are keen to fight very hard to preserve their local courts as this section of the story which starts with some true court room drama worthy of my great hero Rumpole explains:  “I rise in this Victorian court with poor facilities for witnesses, which fails to comply with current court practices and which is not officially compliant with the 1995 Disability Court Act,” said William Clegg in a calculated snub aimed at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, “to save a better appointed Victorian court [Sittingbourne]”.

The article goes on to explain “The action is the first of several judicial reviews backed by magistrates and solicitors in England and Wales objecting to the closure programme. In west Somerset, magistrates have set up a private company, Save Local Justice (Sedgemoor), to initiate action; in South Wales, Vale of Glamorgan council has lodged papers opposing the closure of Barry magistrates court.”

Let’s collectively watch this space!