Clause 10.—(METROPOLITAN STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES.) (Hansard, 30 April 1964)

§ Mr. Brooke

I beg to move, in page 9, to leave out line 10 and to insert: A metropolitan stipendiary magistrate who". 728 The next Amendment, in page 9, line 13, is linked with this one. Clause 10 as it stands provides that a metropolitan stipendiary magistrate is to be, by virtue of his office, a justice of the peace over each of the London Commission areas and for the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey. It also provides that, although he is an ex officio justice for these areas, he is not to sit at quarter sessions for any of these areas. It has been represented to the Government that there is no real necessity to perpetuate the absolute ban on a metropolitan magistrate sitting at quarter sessions in London and the Home Counties. The ban is taken over from the 1839 Act, so it goes back to rather old legislation.

The Government feel that the fact that metropolitan magistrates are ex officio justices to enable them to fulfil their duties as stipendiaries should not entitle them to sit at quarter sessions. It seems wrong that a metropolitan magistrate who has been appointed in his own right to the Commission of any of the areas concerned should be disqualified from sitting at quarter sessions. The Amendment will therefore remove the absolute disqualification which now applies to him by virtue of his being a metropolitan magistrate. It will not entitle him to sit by virtue of being a metropolitan magistrate, but he will be able to sit at quarter sessions if in his own right he is a justice in the area.

§ Mr. James MacColl (Widnes)

Once or twice in Committee the right hon. Gentleman implied that he thought that I approached the Bill with a strong prejudice in favour of lay magistrates and a hostility to stipendiary magistrates. I do not think that that is a fair interpretation of my approach to the Bill. I want to say now only that there seems to be no earthly reason why stipendiary magistrates should not sit at quarter sessions. I am all in favour—and it should be the whole purpose behind the Bill—of genuine integration of the two limbs of the administration of justice in summary jurisdiction in London, the lay wing and the stipendiary wing. Both have different histories, but should now be merged. Anything which brings them together on terms of equality should be welcomed.

I welcome this provision and I am sorry only that the Government did not 729 go further in giving more freedom for the courts to have at their disposal the very great experience of stipendiary magistrates. It seems odd that the men who more than anyone else have an intimate and specialised knowledge of the work of magistrates' courts should be the only people who do not normally hear appeals in these matters. This has always seemed to be to be rather silly. However, the Amendment is a move in the right direction and I only wish that it had gone further.