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Justice suffers in name of cost-cutting

Thursday, 24th June 2010

Lay magistrates are likely to be among the biggest casualties of the Coalition's consultations on the closure of 157 magistrates' and county courts around the country, UKIP Law & Order spokesman Gerard Batten MEP said today.

Mr Batten said that the tradition of lay magistracy was a long one, dating back over many hundreds of years, but successive governments had scaled back the ability of ordinary people to become magistrates, preferring instead government-appointed lawyers as district judges.

Justice Minister Ken Clarke announced the consultations as part of an ongoing cost-cutting review designed to save £37m, jusrt 0.02% of the nation's deficit.

Mr Batten said the £37m was a low price to pay for the ability to access justice swiftly and locally, and simply showed that the ConDem coalition had the same centralising views as the previous administration despite its talk of de-centralisation.

"For those on low incomes in the mainly rural areas affected, this pushes access to justice out of their reach." he said.

"Successive governments have steadily eroded the rights of citizens to have their cases heard locally, with local magistrates presiding.

"Closing courts will discourage witnesses from attending and make justice harder to obtain. Additional travel costs for the police etc could well cancel out any cost savings made. This is a case of knowing the price of something but not the value.

"We understand the government feels it should control all justice and judicial appointments, but that does not make it right. The 'consultation ' exercise, like all government consultations, is nothing more than a PR exercise to soften us up for closures which have already been decided.

"Local people who value justice must do all they can to resist these closures"

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