Becoming a magistrate is a fantastic opportunity to support your community. It also offers a wealth of personal benefits and professional development opportunities. These include opportunities to:
• Improve the way you evaluate information and make decisions based on evidence.
• Increase your confidence in public speaking and engaging with others.
• Learn more about issues affecting your local area and make a difference in your local community.
There are five key attributes required to be a good magistrate. The application process is designed to identify whether you have these attributes. At each stage of the process, you’ll need to demonstrate that you can:
1. Make fair, impartial and transparent decisions
You must be decisive and able to form reasoned opinions that are unbiased, impartial and transparent by following a structured approach when deliberating. You should also be able to assimilate large amounts of information and identify relevant issues.
2. Understand and appreciate different perspectives
You must be able to recognise and appreciate different perspectives, deal with others compassionately and show genuine understanding and empathy towards their situation. You’ll also need awareness of and a willingness to understand key aspects of societal issues.
3. Communicate with sensitivity and respect
You must be able to listen actively and attentively, clarify opinions and communicate confidently and sensitively within confidential boundaries. You should also be able to adapt your communication style to match the situation and clearly articulate the rationale for the decisions you make.
4. Show self-awareness and be open to learning
You must be open-minded, able to reflect and learn from other people’s perspectives, and adapt quickly to changes. You should also be able to seize opportunities to learn and maintain your competence, as well as use effective strategies to maintain your personal wellbeing.
5. Work and engage with people professionally
You must be approachable and dependable, able to instil trust and confidence, and work in a professional and efficient manner both independently and with others. You should also be able to encourage others to participate and engage them in decision-making, appropriately challenging any prejudice in yourself and others.
6. Good character
You’ll also be assessed on whether you’re of good character. Both when you apply, and if you reach the interview stage, you’ll be asked to disclose anything about you which might damage your credibility as a magistrate if it became known to the public. This is to ensure the public have confidence in the magistracy and its decision making. The interview panel will also ask you to affirm your commitment to joining the magistracy and ability to sit the minimum 13 days.
There are a several eligibility requirements for applying to be appointed as a magistrate.
The most basic eligibility requirements are:
- You must be between 18 and 74.
- You must be willing to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Crown.
- You must permanently reside in England or Wales and not be in the process of, or intending to, seeking asylum or indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Establishing whether there’s anything in your personal or professional life that risks bringing the magistracy into disrepute.
It’s important that the public have faith in magistrates and their decisions.
If you answer yes to any of the below, you are not eligible to apply:
- Have you been convicted of a serious motoring offence or accumulated six-nine penalty points, within the last five years?
- At present, are you an undischarged bankrupt, have a debt relief order against you or have entered an arrangement with creditors?
- Are you a director of a company that went into liquidation in the past five years or been disqualified from acting as a director of a company in the last ten years?
Your occupation may make you ineligible
Magistrates must also be free of bias and the appearance of bias, so there are some occupations which may make you ineligible to sit as a magistrate. You can find a list of these occupations below.
Some other occupations or volunteering roles don’t make you automatically ineligible, but there may be conditions attached to your appointment – for example, asking you to sit in a different area to where you work.
Additional personal information required to determine your eligibility
In order to determine if you’re eligible to be appointed as a magistrate, you’ll also be asked to declare additional information about your personal history, and that of your partner or close family, including occupation, volunteering roles, previous convictions, bankruptcy proceedings or any other court proceedings. In answering these questions, try to give as much information as possible.
If you’re applying to the family court, if you have children (under the age of 18) who are currently, or expected to become, the subject of court proceedings or a court order, you will not be eligible to be appointed until those proceedings have concluded.
Waiting for six months to re-apply if you’ve previously applied to the magistracy, and been invited to take the magistrate recruitment qualifying assessment
If you’re invited to complete the qualifying assessment and are unsuccessful, or do not complete the assessment before the deadline, you must wait six months before you can re-apply. If you’ve applied to the magistracy in the last two years, you must give details of your previous application. Your application will not be considered if it’s been less than six months since you were last invited to complete the qualifying assessment.
Waiting for two years to re-apply if you’ve unsuccessfully applied to the magistracy
If you’re interviewed and are unsuccessful in your application to the magistracy, you must wait two years before you can re-apply. If you’ve applied to the magistracy in the last two years, you must give details of your previous application. Your application will not be considered if it’s been less than two years since you were last interviewed.
You must be able to sit as a magistrate for at least 13 full days per year for at least five years.
Sittings are usually planned well in advance and, as far as possible, will be scheduled to take account of your personal circumstances such as work and caring commitments.
Sittings generally take place during normal daytime working hours. Some courts do operate on Saturdays, but you wouldn’t be able to meet the minimum sitting requirements by only sitting on Saturdays.
You’ll be expected to attend some meetings on the day of your court sitting, which will take place after the sitting. These often provide important information about changes to any legislation and procedure that you’ll need to be aware of, and about any matters relating to the bench you’ll be sitting on. This will help improve your awareness of any updates, and any issues that may affect your bench.
Additional time required for your training
Being a magistrate requires you to complete four days’ training before you can commence with sittings. Timetabling of the training will vary, and the training will include half a day on IT training. After that, there’ll be a further one or two days of training every year.
Magistrates must be free of bias and the appearance of bias, so there are some occupations which may make you ineligible to sit as a magistrate.
Please see below the list of ineligible occupations (current or in the past 2 years) for the criminal court:
- Community Safety Partnership members
- Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) employees
- Independent Custody Visitors and lay visitors
- National Crime Agency (NCA) employees
- Police Officer, Police Community Support Officer, Police Special Constable
- Police and Crime Commissioner, and civilian employees of the Police
- Prison Officer, Probation Officer, Probation Prosecutors and certain employees of HM Prison & Probation Service
- Restorative Justice Panels
- Store Detective
- Traffic Officer (Highways Agency) and Traffic Wardens
- Youth Offender Panels and employees of Youth Justice Boards
Please see below the list of ineligible occupations for the family court:
- Educational Welfare Officer
- Mackenzie Friends
- Police and Crime Commissioner
- Prison Service and Prison Escort Contract Services
- Private Detectives
PLEASE NOTE: If you’re successful, other occupations may mean that you’re eligible but subject to conditions e.g you can’t sit in your local area due to a conflict of interest.
Talk to your employer before you apply
Before you apply, you should talk to your employer to establish whether you can fit this around your work commitments. Employers are legally obliged to allow reasonable time off work for employees to serve as magistrates.
Your employer doesn’t have to pay you for your magistrate work, but many employers do.
If you don’t get paid from your employer, or you’re self-employed, you can claim an allowance from the court for loss of earnings here of up to £134.96 per day. You and your employer can find further information about this at Giving staff time off for magistrate duty.
Magistrates are independent and voluntarily carry out their duties within courts administrated by HMCTS, which is recognised as a Disability Confident organisation. We welcome and encourage applications from all groups, including those with a disability who are able, either unassisted or with reasonable adjustments, to carry out the full range of magistrate duties, such as:
• Travelling to and from your local court and navigating your way around the court.
• Reading information provided to you.
• Using the relevant IT equipment such as laptops and iPads.
When you apply, you’ll be asked to indicate on your application form if you require any reasonable adjustments to the selection process. We appreciate that reasonable adjustments are personal and vary depending on applicant needs. So, if you tell us that you need any we’ll contact you directly to assess how we can help you through this process. Anything discussed will be confidential and have no bearing on the success of your application to be a magistrate.
For any further queries, please contact your local advisory committee:
- Avon, Somerset and Gloucestershire SW-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire South-East-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Birmingham & Solihull, Black Country, Coventry and Warwickshire WMWJCO@justice.gov.uk
- Cheshire cm-magistraterecruitment@justice.gov.uk
- Cleveland & County Durham and Darlington nemagistratesrecruitment@justice.gov.uk
- Cumbria CL-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Derbyshire NT-legaladminsupportteam@justice.gov.uk
- Devon, Cornwall and Dorset SW-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Essex & Cambridgeshire South-East-Advisory@Justice.gov.uk
- Greater Manchester GM-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Humber and South Yorkshire nemagistratesrecruitment@justice.gov.uk
- Kent south-east-advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Lancashire CL-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Leicestershire & Rutland LRLN-JudicialSupportTeam@justice.gov.uk
- Lincolnshire LRLN-JudicialSupportTeam@justice.gov.uk
- London LondonACRecruitment@Justice.gov.uk
- Merseyside cm-magistraterecruitment@justice.gov.uk
- Norfolk and Suffolk south-east-advisory@justice.gov.uk
- North and West Yorkshire nemagistratesrecruitment@justice.gov.uk
- Northamptonshire LRLN-JudicialSupportTeam@justice.gov.uk
- Northumbria nemagistratesrecruitment@justice.gov.uk
- Nottinghamshire NT-legaladminsupportteam@justice.gov.uk
- Staffordshire SWMJCO@justice.gov.uk
- Surrey and Sussex South-East-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- Thames Valley (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxon) South-East-Advisory@Justice.gov.uk
- West Mercia (Herefordshire, Shropshire & Worcestershire) SWMJCO@justice.gov.uk
- Wiltshire, Hampshire & Isle of Wight SW-Advisory@justice.gov.uk
- North Wales (Clwyd and Gwynedd) HMCTSWalesAdvisory@justice.gov.uk
- Dyfed Powys HMCTSWalesAdvisory@justice.gov.uk
- Glamorgan (Mid & South), Glamorgan (West), Gwent HMCTSWalesAdvisory@justice.gov.uk