Lay magistrates are unpaid community members who play an important role in the criminal justice system. They hear minor criminal cases such as traffic offenses and property damage, as well as more serious crimes like assault, drug offenses, and manslaughter. To become a magistrate, one must be 18-70 years old, able to make independent judgments, and work as part of a team. Magistrates receive training in legal procedures, sentencing, and communication skills. Serving as a magistrate provides hands-on experience in court hearings and helps develop skills like independence, confidence, and time management. It also fosters understanding of the legal system and importance of the law.

1. LAY MAGISTRATES

2. WHO ARE LAY MAGISTRATES
• Lay magistrates are unpaid and unqualified people from the community
who play a very important role in the Criminal Justice system. To become a
suitable Lay Magistrate's they have to be between the ages of 18 – 70 and
they must be able to manage themselves, work as a team, and make
judicial decisions. They deal with most cases, hear different types of crimes
and set out punishments in place for the defendant. They hear minor crimes
such as which are less serious offences, these can be road traffic offences.
Minor assaults such as Actual Bodily Harm (ABH), and property damage. To
the major crimes such as These offences could be aggravated burglary,
indecent assault, Drug offences, such as possession of Class A, Class B, Class
C. Also possession of these drugs with intent to supply, and drug trafficking.
Another type of crime they hear is murder and manslaughter.

3. SKILLS NEEDED AND GAINED FOR
A LAY MAGISTRATES
• The Lay Magistrates must possess 6 main qualities to become part of the
team, these are good character, understanding and communication, social
awareness, maturity and sound temperament, sound judgement, and lastly
commitment and reliability. Magistrates need intelligence, common sense,
integrity and the capacity to act fairly
• Skills gained when you become a Lay Magistrates are independence,
confidence, time management, being aware of what is going on, being
able to work part of a team.

4. TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
• All magistrates are trained before sitting and continue their training
throughout their service. Training courses take place and cover such topics
as basic rules of court procedure, current legislation, sentencing powers and
options, decision making and communication skills. Mentoring, on-the-job
training, observations in court and visits to other institutions also form part of
the training programme. They also receive specialist training in for work in the
family or youth court.
• This gives more experience on how it feels to sit in a court room with high
profile people and listen to court hearings which makes you feel a part of
the programme. First hand knowledge about what offence has taken place
and what you can do about it so it doesn’t happen again. This experience
makes you reflect on yourself and the outside world.

5. UNDERSTANDING
• After experiencing the first hand court room environment it makes you
understand how difficult it can be and what consequences are taken if you
do anything wrong.
• It makes you understand the importance of law and the seriousness of the
law.
• It makes you listen carefully to the defendant and understand why they
have committed that offence.

6. MAKE A DIFFERENCE
• Becoming a Lay Magistrates would make a difference to you as a young
person as your contributions in the court room would affect the defendant
and the society by setting out certain punishments in place so they wouldn’t
do that offence again.
• You could also make a difference by hearing about the consequences that
have taken place in the court room and advising others not about what
happened in court but not to do offences as it could have a lot of impact
on their lives.

7. GOOD REFERENCE AND CAREER
ASPECTS
• You will get recommendations and a good reference by high profile people
such as judges, solicitors which will make an impact on future jobs and
careers you want to do it.
• It will also look good on your cv that you have done judiciary work and have
experience in that field.
• The career aspects you can go into after this experience is:
• Working in-house for a company
• Law centres
• Government legal service
• Local government
• And many more…