THOUSANDS of younger and more ethnically diverse magistrates will be recruited as part of a drive by the Lord Chancellor to boost the standing of magistrates’ courts.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, QC, is presenting a White Paper that will require employers to give magistrates in England and Wales time off in the way that parents with small or disabled children can take time off from their jobs.

There is concern that the unpaid volunteers who handle 90 per cent of cases in the criminal justice system are still regarded as white, middle-class and middle-aged — the average age is 55 — and that there are still whole communities unrepresented by any magistrates.

The proposed laws will also give magistrates powers to enforce penalties faster and more efficiently so that their courts command greater respect.

Rachel Lipscomb, chairman of the 28,500-strong Magistrates’ Association in England and Wales, said that there was an urgent need to recruit more magistrates who were younger and from the ethnic minorities.

She said that this was the “most critical” challenge that the magistracy faced. “This is the one thing that could undermine the magistracy . . . if recruitment dropped.”

Today’s White Paper coincides with a £4 million recruitment drive already under way on buses and trains to recruit more magistrates. Last month a 20-year old man of Asian origin, Anand Limbachia, a civil servant, was reported to have been apppointed to the North Sussex bench, Britain’s youngest magistrate.

Magistrates receive only their expenses; and in recent years a greater commitment of time is needed because of increased training.

Mrs Lipscomb said: “We need to do much more to emphasise that magistrates are not just the big white chiefs sitting in court. They acquire transferable skills.”

The White Paper will propose amending the Employment Act 2002 so that employers are obliged to give magistrates time off unless they have good reason not to.

SEAT ON BENCH

• Recruits can be aged 18 to 65.
• Need “intelligence, common sense, integrity and capacity to act fairly”
• Should sit at least 26 half days a year (up to 35), and be prepared to sit all day
• Benches should have a roughly equal number of men and women
• No more than 15 per cent of bench should share occupational group

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