The government’s new proposed law change is being sold as a modernisation of the courts, but in reality it risks deepening an already critical crisis in criminal justice. By extending magistrates’ sentencing powers, pushing more complex cases onto a volunteer judiciary and accelerating the quiet professionalisation of the lower courts, the reforms undermine public participation while ignoring the root cause of the backlog: years of chronic underinvestment, court closures, staff shortages and failing digital systems.
Drawing on my experience as a former magistrate, I argue that the Lammy reforms are a politically convenient distraction from a justice system on the brink.
Lammy law change: yet more political interference
The government’s newly announced reforms, quickly dubbed the ‘Lammy law change’, are being marketed as administrative efficiency. But in practice, they represent yet another step in a long pattern of political interference in the courts. As with many criminal justice reforms over the past decade, this package prioritises headline-grabbing toughness over evidence, experience or practicality.
The changes will lengthen sentences, place unprecedented pressure on a volunteer magistracy, accelerate the professionalisation of the lower courts, and further erode the tradition of public participation in justice. And all this is happening while the real, well-documented crisis in our courts – chronic underinvestment – remains unaddressed.
As a former magistrate, I saw the system breaking down long before now. These reforms simply drive another wedge into already-fractured foundations.
Historical role of Magistrates’ Courts
Magistrates’ courts have historically operated on the principle that justice should be rooted in the community. Lay magistrates are unpaid volunteers, drawn from ordinary life, expected to bring common-sense reasoning and local knowledge to low-level disputes. Their legitimacy lies in public participation, not professional expertise and their powers were intentionally limited to reflect that role. For decades, magistrates could impose a maximum sentence of six months, an arrangement that ensured more serious or complex cases were handled by trained judges in the Crown Court.
That balance has now shifted dramatically. Sentencing powers quietly doubled from six to twelve months in 2022, and the Lammy reforms effectively expand this to 24 months through consecutive sentencing. This incremental ratcheting-up of powers means that cases involving greater complexity, higher harm and more serious legal consequences are increasingly being decided by people who have no formal legal training.
What was once a civic, community-based jurisdiction is being stretched into a quasi-professional one – without the training, pay or safeguards that professionalisation requires. This is not modernisation; it is the outsourcing of judicial labour to an unpaid workforce, risking inconsistent outcomes while eroding the very democratic foundations magistrates’ courts were meant to protect.
Longer sentences by the back door
The centrepiece of the Lammy law change is extending magistrates’ sentencing powers. The government claims this will reduce the Crown Court backlog by allowing more cases to remain in the lower courts. But evidence from the last time this was tried shows the opposite happens.
When magistrates’ powers were increased from six to 12 months in 2022 under the Sentencing Powers (Magistrates’ Courts) (Pilot) Programme (StraPP), the change was presented as an efficiency measure that would ease pressure on the Crown Court. StraPP allowed ministers to activate extended sentencing powers through secondary legislation, bypassing full parliamentary scrutiny and was framed as a temporary pilot to test whether giving magistrates longer custodial powers would reduce the backlog. In practice, it did nothing of the sort.
The Ministry of Justice found no measurable improvement in Crown Court delays. Instead, the number of defendants receiving custodial sentences from magistrates’ courts increased, and research by the Howard League (Howard League for Penal Reform, 2023 The Impact of Sentencing Reforms. Howard League: London, p. 3.) showed that cases that might previously have been sent upstairs for trial were now being sentenced “more harshly and with noticeably less judicial oversight.” In other words, StraPP functioned less as a backlog solution and more as a quiet mechanism for inflating imprisonment.
That shift is dangerous, because magistrates’ courts were never designed to handle the most complex custodial decisions. Lay benches excel at community sentencing, problem-solving approaches, and localised justice. Turning them into quasi-Crown Courts undermines the very philosophy that has kept the magistracy effective for over 650 years.
An unsustainable burden on a volunteer workforce
Magistrates give their time freely, an estimated £21mn of unpaid labour annually. They do this out of civic commitment, not ambition for judicial authority. The government’s plan expects these volunteers to:
- handle more complex legal arguments;
- impose significantly longer custodial terms;
- manage more emotionally severe cases;
- navigate increasingly dysfunctional digital systems and
- shoulder responsibility disproportionate to their training and support.
Morale in the magistracy is already low. The Magistrates’ Association warned in 2023 that recruitment and retention were becoming “critical concerns”, explicitly citing workload pressures and insufficient training for expanding sentencing powers.
A volunteer force cannot be expected to take on responsibilities equivalent to salaried judges while the government refuses to fund the system adequately. The magistracy works because it is rooted in public participation–not because it is an unpaid substitute for a fully staffed judiciary.
I left the bench for these exact reasons. Day after day, volunteer magistrates were expected to deliver justice while tools, staff, and structure around us crumbled. It became impossible to do the job with integrity.
Friends of Bylines Network
There has never been a greater need for grassroots journalism that investigates the stories that really matter, holds power to account and champions the voices of everyday citizens. We are proudly powered by volunteers but what we do isn’t free.
STAND WITH US for independent, citizen-led journalism that makes democracy stronger, and you will even get some exclusive benefits.
