In England, being a magistrate it is still a proudly amateur affair, rooted in the idea that free men should be judged by their peers.Eric Diotte/The Globe and Mail
There are no wigs, robes or "m'luds" in my friend Tom's courtroom. In fact, there are no professional judges. Tom Mautner has no law degree. He gets no salary. Yet he sits in judgment of accused thieves, vandals and brawlers, deciding their fate with all the authority of a proper judge in ermine and red.
Mr. Mautner is one of 26,000 volunteer magistrates who serve on the front lines of the judicial system of England and Wales. People like him handle more than 90 per cent of the traffic in the criminal courts. All accused criminals appear before a magistrate first, even those charged with murder.
Canadian justices of the peace, who do similar work, are usually paid by the government. In England, being a magistrate is still a proudly amateur affair, rooted in the idea that free men should be judged by their peers.
"The magistracy goes back 650 years," Mr. Mautner told me. "You have to remember that this is the oldest judicial system in the world we're talking about." This spring, when my family stayed with his at their London home, he invited me to see how his court works.
Mr. Mautner was born in Mumbai (then Bombay) to Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe who later resettled in Britain. He became a successful automobile executive and IT consultant, raising three girls with his wife, Karen, who grew up in Ottawa.
When he left the car business, he says, "my lovely wife told me, 'That's all very well, but we have to find you something to do.' "At 64, he is a ball of energy who likes Indian food and BBC radio. Stuck in London traffic one day, they saw a magistrates-wanted ad on the back of a bus. Karen called the number on the spot.
Nine years later, he is senior magistrate, or chair, on the North London bench. Magistrates usually sit in panels of three: a chair and two "wingers." Chairs lead the proceeding, do all the talking and are addressed as "sir, "ma'am" or "your worship." The wingers sit on either side, ready to consult or join in deliberations out of court.
On the morning I watched in Highbury Corner Magistrates Court, Mr. Mautner worked briskly through a series of hard cases, sad cases and hopeless causes. He handles about 25 a day, checking the court docket on his BlackBerry Playbook.
Magistrates have three options. If it is a serious offence such as murder or armed robbery, they are obliged to kick the case upstairs to the Crown court. A more minor offence, such as petty theft or dangerous driving, they can deal with then and there. So-called "either way" cases – say, handling stolen property – they can judge themselves or send up.
The first case is a gruesome one: a middle-aged woman accused of sexually abusing two boys aged 14 and 16. Proclaiming that "the court declines jurisdiction in this matter," Mr. Mautner sends the case to the professionals.
Next, a gaunt young man with a grey hoodie and the beaten-down expression of so many people who go through the courts takes his seat in the dock. His name is Terry David Buck. He is accused of stealing some cheap furnishings – a mirror, a table, a framed floral print – from the common area of his apartment building.
"He saw it and he took it," his court-appointed lawyer reports matter-of-factly, because he wanted to get his mother a birthday present but lacked the money. "Stand up please, Mr. Buck," Mr. Mautner says after consulting his winger, sentencing the defendant to 80 hours of community service and ordering him to reimburse the owner of the stolen articles.
There are lighter moments in the court. A few days after my visit, he judged a young man in dreadlocks who had managed to face charges of marijuana possession no fewer than 107 times. In the latest, he strolled blithely by a couple of cops while smoking a large spliff. Mr. Mautner ordered him to stay at home evenings, wearing an electronic tag to monitor his curfew.
In another, rather disgusting, case, a man was so upset at the poor service he got from a bank clerk that he mailed her a chocolate box full of excrement. DNA evidence proved it was his own, showing once again that those who appear in court are usually less than criminal masterminds.
Mr. Mautner calls his volunteer judging "the single most interesting thing I've ever done in my life. It is endlessly varied. No day in court is like any other day."
But is entrusting the courts to a pack of amateurs the best way to mete out justice? Most Western countries professionalized the judiciary years ago. Ontario's 345 justices of the peace – lay judges who preside over bail and remand courts – are paid $121,376 a year and are not required to have a legal degree, whereas in some provinces, such as Alberta and Nova Scotia, they are.
But Mr. Mautner argues that the amateur, volunteer nature of the English magistracy is, in fact, its greatest strength.
"One of my colleagues drives a Tube train, one of my colleagues is a distinguished academic, one of my colleagues runs what I would call a reasonably sleazy nightclub," he says.
Anyone 18 or over can be a magistrate and last year a 20-year-old English-literature student, Nicky Stubbs, made news when he joined the bench in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
In any case, Mr. Mautner says, the amateurs are highly trained and carefully chosen. The authorities accept only 15 per cent of those who apply. Examiners put him through two exacting interviews of two hours each, probing for prejudices and testing his reasoning skills. For his first year in court, he sat alongside a court-appointed mentor, "there to kick you in the shins if you do something stupid." Even now, he can consult a legal adviser always there to offer expert opinion.
Because they work part-time, Mr. Mautner says, magistrates tend to be less hardened than their counterparts in the Crown courts, "who see this … endless parade of the dregs of humanity."
Magistrates bring a local perspective too. "We know the places where people go and we know the ethos of our patch," says Mr. Mautner, who had a business in North London for 24 years and sent his girls to local schools.
When he took his oath of office, he pledged to "do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of the realm without fear or favour, affection or ill will."
It helps when all manner of people do the judging as well.