Advantages And Disadvantages Of Lay Magistrates

Register to read the introduction… Furthermore, an advantage for the use of lay magistrates is that there are few successful appeals in a magistrate’s court, which suggests that the system is working. This in turn will boost public confidence in the law enforcement system, as they will begin to believe that cases can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.

However, as well as having advantages for the use of lay magistrates, there are also disadvantages to this. A disadvantage for the use of lay magistrates is they are prosecution bias, meaning that they tend to believe the police services over the defence. This goes to show that as the police are employed to keep order on the streets, an unlawful act against this will not be seen in the same light as an unlawful act between two parties, which does not involve the police. Moreover, another disadvantage is that lay magistrates tend to be ‘middle-class and middle-minded.’ They are not a true cross-section of people from the local community and may be seen to have little in common with young defendants, which took lead to them enforcing a wrong decision.

In addition, a disadvantage is that the lay magistrates are