English Justice
English Justice. By " Solicitor." (Routl edge. 10s. (id.) !' ENGLISH Justice," say the publishers, " is living on its reputa- tion. Such is the considered verdict of the distinguished author of this book, backed with a wealth of detail." The " verdict " is not really quite as sensational as this announcement would make it appear. The anonymous but obviously knowledge- able author is solely concerned with criminal justice, and then only within a limited sphere. About the Judges, as distinct from the magistrates, he has little more to say than that they are not infallible, and that they exact—as they usually do— an exaggerated obsequiousness from counsel. No doubt all Judges are not equally efficient or equally fair ; but the higher Courts are not discussed in any detail, and the author does not appear to suggest' that there is anything radically wrong with the Old Bailey or the Assize Courts, which deal with a large proportion of the more serious charges. Nor is there. much criticism of the stipendiary magistrates ; indeed, some police-court practitioners would • say that they are let off rather more lightly than they ought to be. Be that as it may, by disinissing them in a paragraph, the author further narrows the scope of his indictment. He has nothing startling to say about the polide. They have their failings, but " there is little inherently wrong with the police." There are some caustic, but not too caustic, Observations on the subject of Coroners, and a few candid comments on advocates and juries. But these do not figure prominently in the argument. The author's main attack is on the unpaid magistracy; his real quarrel, as here set forth, is not with English justice generally, but with one aspect—a highly important aspect, it is true—of the adMini.stration of criminal justice at its lower levels. It is, of course, at the lower levels that the Courts come into the closest .contact with the public, and it is plainly of the utmost consequence that the Magistrates' Courts should be abike reproach. " Solicitor's " indictment is a,' formidable one. , What it amounts to is, in brief, that appointments to the Bench are frequently made for the wrong reasons ; that inatiy Jatitites are unfit for judicial' office because of their age, or their prejudices, or their lack of education or of human sympathy ; that Benches so constituted are unfit to administer the ordinary law, to say nothing of • applying complicated enactments like the Rent Acts ; that the magistrates are far too, stibservient to the police and too ready to accept police evidence and that a defendant, if unrepresented, runs a risk of being bullied, confused, and even kept in ignorance of his 'legal' rights. Sentences,.it is stated, are often arbitrary, and fines are habitually imposed without reference to the defendant's means, or any real consideration of what payment will mean to him. As for appeals, both the expense and the elaborate technicalities place them beyond the reach of all but a few ; and if the appeal is to Quarter Sessions, as it com- monly will be, it will in many cases come before a Bench no better constituted than the first. The Justices, it is true, are assisted by a Clerk, who is usually an experienced lawyer ; but " everyone knows Courts where the Clerk . . . interrupts everyone, snubs his own Chairman, bullies the witnesses, quarrels with the advocates, and wastes more time than he saves by hurrying everything on." Moreover, the Clerk is usually a solicitor in private practice, so that the case on which he is ad- vising the magistrates may be one affecting a client of his own.
No one familiar with police-courts will deny that there is some substance in these complaints, though many will consider that the indictment is too sweeping. " Solicitor's " experience has apparently been unfortunate, but there are plenty of Courts where the Justices do their duty conscientiously and humanely. But even one bad Bench, armed with the extensive and ever-growing powers which are exercised by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction, may do enormous harm ; and though bad Benches may not be as common as " Solicitor " suggests, there are quite enough of them to cause uneasiness. How much injustice is actually done as a result is a different question. It is, of course, a question to which it is impossible to return a precise statistical answer. But " Solicitor's " case would have been stronger if he had produced, as one would have expected him to Lao, a series of striking cases, within his own knowledge, of plainly unwarrantable decisions. If he said that he was personally satisfied that a convicted person was innocent, or was convicted on insufficient evidence, one might be prepared to take his word for it. But he seldom goes as far as this ; and when he does give illustrations, they are in several cases taken quite frankly from newspaper reports, though he himself observes that " newspaper reports are of necessity inadequate to supply a fair basis for criticism." Personal experiences will naturally vary, but on the whole one is inclined to think that in the ultimate result rough justice is usually done, or that at all events serious miscarriages Of justice are not numerous in proportion to the hundreds of thousands of cases which come before the magistrates year by year.. But it is essential as, we are rightly reminded, that justice should not only be done, but should appear to be rdone ; and it is certainly true that, whatever the final results, the magistrates' methods are not always such as to inspire confidence in the law. " Solicitor takes the view that matters have been made worse rather than better by the Report of the Royal Commission of 1910, which led to the con- stitution of Advisory Committees on the appointment of Justices. Before 1910 the Justices were nearly all drawn from one social class ; the attempt to redress the balance has led to the appointment of Justices by reference largely to their political complexion, and has, according to " Solicitor," brought hosts of quite unsuitable men on to the Bench. Whether the pre-1910 arrangement was better calculated to inspire public confidence than that now in force may be seriously doubted ; but it does seem paradoxical that persons wielding extensive punitive and other powers should often be selected without much serious regard to the really relevant qualifications. The reformed Advisory Cemmittees suggested by Solicitor " would be far too likely to have an anti-working -class bias to be acceptable under present conditions ; but :there may well be room for some closer serutiny, which would eliminate unsuitable nominations and painlessly extinguish magistrates of proved incompetence. Much depends on the Clerk, and while " Solicitor's " views on the appointment of magistrates are, to say the least, rather debatable; there is much more to be said for his suggestion that the Clerk should be entirely removed from private practice and.should be an independent whole-time officer, with the right to rule, and not merely to advise, on questions of law and procedure. A still more desirable reform, if it were practicable, might be to arrange Petty Sessions in groups, and to appoint for each group a stipendiary, who would make a circuit and preside at the Sessions in tarn, not as dictator, but as primes inter pares. Whatever may be the solution, there can be no doubt as to the existence of the problem, and .!` Solicitor" has done a valuable service in ventilating it, even if in doing so he has somewhat over-stated his case.
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