Green to keep magistrates' sentencing powers 'under review'

Damian Green, the justice minister, has said that the sentencing powers of magistrates will be kept 'under review', with the government keeping on the statute book provisions which could increase them.

Green said there was an "attractive logic" to increasing powers as a way of keeping more cases in the magistrates' courts, but there was a risk it could cause "additional pressure on the prison population".

The justice minister said the MoJ had done some work on analysing the impact of increased powers, but admitted that ministers "perhaps disagree" with the Magistrates Association on "how easy it could be to realise any savings and the costs of additional prison places".

Green said he wanted to work with magistrates to find why cases were being "escalated" to the Crown Court where they already had the powers to deal with them.

"Around 40 per cent of defendants that are convicted in magistrates courts and then committed to the Crown Court for custodial sentences receive no more than six months imprisonment," Green said.

"These are cases which magistrates could have sentenced - no, these are cases which magistrates should have sentenced. They already have the skills, capability and powers to do so."

"We also need to get the balance right at the lower end of the spectrum as well. There is definitely a place for out-of-court disposals in ensuring justice is brought in cases which may otherwise not have come to court, and as a proportionate response to some low-level offending.

"But we need to make sure that it is only these cases which are getting out-of-court disposals, and that all cases which should properly be brought before a court are brought to court."

As already trailed in the national media, Green said the government would pass new laws to remove uncontested road traffic cases from magistrates' courts.

"One magistrate could deal with this much more efficiently in an office," he added.