ABSTRACT
Magistrates’ experiences of working as lay justices, what motivates them to volunteer in work of this nature, the contribution they make to the justice system and the value they gain from serving in a judicial role were explored in the previous chapter. This chapter continues to draw on evidence from the magistrates’ interviews and examines the way that the various court alterations that are taking place are impacting on their court working lives, and how they are contending with these. As such, it reports on magistrates’ experiences of working within the lower courts of the English justice system at a time of restructure and within the modernised styles of delivery that are being operationalised in progressing to the future. Broadly, the chapter conceptualises the courtroom changes within the construct of increasing professionalisation, which I argue is evident in lower court justice and at this time of reform (Cox, 2010; Seago et al., 2000; Davies, 2005). It applies themes of workplace restructure, changing court cultures and the professionalisation of magistrates’ court justice. It is within this chapter that a distinction between the experiences of the more recently recruited magistrates and magistrates who have served for longer periods comes through. Seeing that the notion of professionalisation is a key concept applied in this chapter, it is necessary to define precisely what is meant by this. This is important because the literature on the English justice system sometimes refers to the legally qualified district judges and deputy district judges who work in the lower courts and their increased numbers over the decades as indication of professionalisation within the lower court jurisdiction (Seago et al., 2000). My reference in this chapter is slightly different. It relates to the greater emphasis within lower criminal court work on the managerialist approaches and efficient forms of operation that have been introduced, for example the speedy justice initiatives, swift case processing, directed case management procedures and the tight adherence to the Sentencing Guidelines. Magistrates are under pressure to demonstrate competences in these areas of modern courtroom delivery. It was evident that my research was going on at a time when there was activity within the judiciary in relation to recruiting across a more diverse pool of potential applicants and to encouraging younger recruits to join (Green, 2014).
