This article is relevant to AQA A-level 3.1 (English legal system) and OCR A-level Unit 1 (criminal courts and lay people).
There are currently around 18,900 magistrates in England and Wales. They are part-time, unpaid, volunteer judicial office holders, sitting mainly in the Magistrates’ Courts. They are also, though less commonly, known as justices of the peace, often abbreviated to ‘JPs’. Collectively they are called ‘the magistracy’. They are one of the two groups of laypeople who make a major contribution to the administration of justice in the courts of England and Wales, the other being jurors.
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