I don’t like being Cassandra but that seems my role when it comes to the recruitment of magistrates. In 2023 a whistleblower approached me to sound the alarm about the new recruitment process for magistrates. He was an experienced member of a recruitment panel for magistrates. He reported that the recruitment process had recently been reformed, but that he feared it was biased in favour of professional, middle-class candidates. I investigated but was hindered by a lack of any information in the public domain. When the annual judicial diversity statistics were published in July 2023 I concluded that he was right and that, moreover, the process seemed to be biased against candidates from ethnic minorities. As well as it taking a hugely long time.

One thing has improved since 2023 – the time it takes to get through the process. It was taking up to two years, but is now taking more like a year…still too long but hugely improved.

Unfortunately the problem identified by the whistleblower – bias in the process towards the kind of white middle class people who have always been magistrates – is still there. The new annual judicial diversity figures were published in July 2026. Three years on they confirmed that the “new” recruitment system was/is biased against, or at least offputting to, the very people they should be attracting – younger working class people and people from minoritised communities.

The government has published a special analysis and it shows the following groups are/were less likely to be successful in becoming magistrates – working class people, those who received free school meals as children, younger people, candidates who identify as Muslim, and those from minoritised communities. 

The data is not clear as to whether under-represented groups are dropping out of the process voluntarily, or being rejected by recruiters. It refers to “drop out” rate which implies applicants deciding not to continue, but the notes make clear that drop out includes rejection. This is a fudge and should not be presented this way. JAC statistics on recruitment of paid judges make clear who is accepted/rejected as part of the process.

The drop out figures though do indicate who is and who isn’t becoming magistrates and the trends are shocking. There are plenty of people from underrepresented groups who are applying to be or could be persuaded to apply for the magistracy. But persuasion is pointless if the recruitment process is already biased against these under-represented groups, which it is.

The government cannot afford to preside over a broken and biased magistrate recruitment process any longer. They have recently increased the sentencing powers of magistrates and are trying to curb the ability of those convicted to appeal any conviction or sentence received in the magistrates’ court. Trust in the justice system will erode further if magistrates are not representative of the people. The record is shameful – the percentage increase in ethnic minority magistrates in the last ten years is 2% less than the equivalent percentage increase for paid judges. 19% of the England and Wales population is from an ethnic minority but only 14% of magistrates are.

Anecdotal evidence supports the statistics. The only two people I know who have recently succeeded in becoming magistrates are white, professional and in their 60s. They are friends and will make great JPs, but are demographically same old, same old. While two excellent courtwatchers who applied both failed at the interview stage. Florence Browne-Marke, who is Black, was disappointed not to get through and was critical of the slowness of the process (“12+ months is too long. People’s lives move on. Good candidates drop out or take other jobs”), the lack of feedback and the ban on reapplying for six months after rejection; “How can people improve if they don’t know what went wrong? It also feels disrespectful of the time people invested”.

What to do? I think scrap the current recruitment system and start from scratch. This time I hope they might listen, not for my sake, but for the sake of the integrity of the justice system.