영국 치안판사법원의 경미사건처리제도

The Summary Trials of the Magistrates’ Courts in England

&nbsp;&nbsp;Magistrates’ Courts(MC) System in England is very unique in that minor offences are tried summarily without jurors and laymen participate in the trials. The History of so-called ‘lay Magistrates’ derives from the justices of the peace in the middle age. They are unpaid and not legally qualified, but about 95 percents of the criminal cases are tried in the Magistrates’ courts.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Magistrates have three main functions in the criminal cases: hearing applications for bail, trial, and appeals. The role of magistrates in the criminal justice system has been effectively increased in recent years, and the vast majority of the criminal offences are summary only and some offences which were previously triable either way have been made summary only.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;The strong points of the system are as follows: it takes less money and time than the trials of the crown courts, and participation of laymen to the criminal trials contributes to the law-abiding spirit among the people. However, its system has some weak points; for example, there is considerable inconsistency in the decision-making of different benchs; because lay magistrates are not legally educated or trained, the trials of magistrates are often inefficient or biased towards the police.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Even though the MC have advantages and disadvantages, it gives us some suggestions: it is necessary and important for laymen to participate in the criminal trials as a mediator for the restorative justice, so it is properly proposed that laymen ―especially legally educated or qualified person like lawyers― can preside in the criminal mediation. In recent days criminal mediation is done at the prosecution stage as a offender-victim compromise scheme, but there is no statute for that. So now it needs to make a legislation for the criminal mediation and it would be better for lay mediator like a lawyer to preside the mediation case.