Merge police stations and courts for 'on-the-spot' sentencing proposed

Policy exchange proposed putting magistrates in police stations to save time and money.

16:02 21 February 2014

Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunals Services will suffer from a massive 37.8per cent budget cut between 2012 and 2016. Because of this, Justice minister Damian Green said that the government was “looking at the role of magistrates.” 

Now, Policy Exchange proposes that magistrates should sit during evenings and weekends to speed up the judicial system. It also proposes magistrates to provide on-the-spot sentencing at police stations.

Mr Green said: "Magistrates are the cornerstone of our justice system. Their local knowledge and unique skills make them an extremely valuable part of our judicial process.

"We are already looking at the role of magistrates and starting to explore ways to maximise their role within the criminal justice system."

 

Meanwhile, Richard Monkhouse, chairman of the Magistrates' Association, said that the proposals may result to problems.

"One of the problems with having courts in police stations is public perception. Are the public going to believe that open and transparent justice is being served by having an apparent collusion between police and magistrates?

"We have no problem with the speed element at all, except that defendants need to know what their rights are, they need to be aware of the implications of the court case, so they need to have preparation and doing it that quickly may actually interfere with that."

On the subject of travelling magistrates, he agreed that authorities had to "think outside the box that is the courtroom" but he raised concerns about how that would work in rural areas.