Talk:Magistrate (England and Wales)

Magistrate (England and Wales) was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 28, 2011	Good article nominee	Not listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on August 12, 2011.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Lord Irvine dismissed a record of fifteen magistrates of England and Wales in a single year in 1999?

Law Low‑importance

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Wales Mid‑importance

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England High‑importance

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DYK nomination

Magistrates of England and Wales

*Promoted by Crisco 1492 (talk): Template talk:Did you know/Magistrates of England and Wales

Advantages/Disadvantages

I feel that the Advantages/Disadvantages section in its present form lacks neutrality, and that it would be better to entitle it "Evaluation", state that there have been a number of research papers and reviews of magistrates' courts in the last 20 years, and then list those researches/reviews with their findings under separate headings.Shaibalahmar (talk) 07:11, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree How about we use the headings 'Benefits of the use of lay magistrates' and 'Criticisms of the use of lay magistrates'. What do you think? --InExcelsis DeoTalk 07:35, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I still think use of the words "benefits" and "criticisms" is judgemental and not necessarily supported by the research findings. Some of the "Disadvantages/Criticisms" are qualified so it could be argued that they should also come under "Advantages/Benefits". I suggest:

Evaluation/Reviews of Magistrates' Courts

The Judiciary in the Magistrates' Court (2000) - state review findings and recommendations etc.
Auld Report - ditto -
Justice for All - ditto -

(and so on, in chronological order).

I did something similar for Magistrates' Courts' Committees Shaibalahmar (talk) 08:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have now changed the article to remove the "Advantages/ Disadvantages" headings and replaced them with a single section, "Evaluations of the role of magistrates". It doesn't go as far as I originally suggested but maybe a reasonable compromise.Shaibalahmar (talk) 17:09, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Appointment

A few years ago a colleague of mine who was a magistrate told me that in Lancashire the JPs are appointed by the Queen in her position of Duke of Lancaster, not as monarch. Can anyone confirm or deny? And a vague twitch in the depths of my memory says that in Cornwall, similarly, they are appointed by the Duke of COrnwall --Yendor1958 (talk) 07:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Magistrates of England and Wales/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk · contribs) 21:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: three found and fixed.[1] Jezhotwells (talk) 22:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Linkrot: two found, one fixed, one tagged/[2] Jezhotwells (talk) 22:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I aim to post a full review within two days. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
The article is mostly well written but a few phrases stood out:

A practising solicitor or barrister may sit part-time as a district judge (who may be taking his first steps on the route to becoming a full-time district judge) reads rather clumsily.

There are still some remnants of these duties, such as the licensing of pubs and clubs which was transferred to local authorities with justices retaining an appellate jurisdiction. I find this somwhat contradictory as magistrates no longer have this licensing function.

On the finding of incapacity or misbehaviour (usually occurs when magistrate is convicted of a criminal offence, approximately 10 removals each year) needs to be recast more grammatically.

The justices' clerk is required to be qualified as a solicitor or a barrister for a minimum of five years. again rather clumsy{{not done]] Check your spelling.

The presiding magistrate is known as the chairman and, when sitting three on the bench, will sit at the centre, with the other two magistrates known as "wingers" could bebetter phrased. Not done When sitting three magistrates on the bench, the chairman will sit in the middle. is reall;y no better.

dismiss an information where no evidence is offered, "an information" needs some explanation Not done

Over the last 15 years, there have been a number of research papers and reviews of the role of magistrates, with a number of observations being made: "a number ... a number"

Typical recruitment campaigns have been supported by local newspapers and magazines, from broadsheets and tabloids to women's magazines and TV listings rather ungrammatical.{[not done}} "Typical" is one of the problem words here. Please recast in good plain English.

I feel the whole article needs copy-editing to explain jargon and improve prose flow.

There are a number of embedded lists which would be better rendered as prose. Not done

There are a few isolated sentences, e.g. The Human Rights Act 1998 requires magistrates to give reasons for their decisions, unlike jury verdicts in the Crown Court $ Lord Bingham, former Lord Chief Justice, observed that the lay magistracy was “…a democratic jewel beyond price” Not done

The lead does not fully summarise the article - should be a few sentences on the history, training and evaluation. See WP:LEAD, also leads should be no longer than 4 paragraphs. Not done

In the section Training of new magistrates, a fair bit of the text is lifted from the supporting cite.[3] Not done

It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
Sources appear to be RS, there is inconsistency in the citations, which could be improved by the use of citation templates. Sources which are used more than once would be better displaced in a works cited section. Not done

Some paragraphs, e.g. The titles "magistrate" and "justice of the peace" mean the same, although today the former is commonly used in the popular media, and the latter in more formal contexts. The term "lay" referred to the voluntary, unsalaried nature of the appointment and was used to distinguish them from professional magistrates, known as stipendiaries. However, since stipendiaries became district judges, the term has fallen into disuse. are not supported by the citation - in this case [4]. Not done

There are also some uncited paragraphs. Not done
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
the coverage is good but there is a certain amount of repetition, viz. the "R v Eccles Justices, ex parte Farrelly" case which is covered in two separate sections. Not done
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Yes, NPOV
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
Stable
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Images captioned and tagged. I have some concerns about File:Court room layout.png, which appears to be WP:OR. Not done
I found a couple of similar but they all seem a tad different here and here both slightly differing to the one currently in the article - I think removal will be best. Off2riorob (talk) 23:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
I feel there is a lot of work needed to bring this up to GA status, but it can be done if the nominator is prepared to work at it. On hold for seven days. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not much has been done to address this. Thanks to [[User:Shaibalahmar|Shaibalahmar] for some prose tweaks and to Off2riorob for helpful comments. As the nominator has gone walkabout, I am not going to list at this time

The history of this article is worth looking at. It was created in a whirl of cut-and-paste and immediately nominated for GA status. I have done a lot of work ironing out the cut-and-paste aspects and making it neutral but I never thought it was ready for GA status.I have addressed some of the above points but won't be doing any more. Good review Shaibalahmar (talk) 06:27, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For info: the nominator, InExcelsisDeo (talk · contribs), has not edited for about two months. Bencherlite ^Talk 08:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I am not sure if Off2riorob is coming back to look at this. I have dropped a note at the Law project page. I will wait until the end of the seven days hold before considering what to do. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:44, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Training of magistrates, possible error.

The section currently begins with "s 19 (3) of the Courts Act 2003[51] places a statutory obligation on the Lord Chancellor to provide training and training materials to magistrates." but, upon following the link, it appears that this has been switched to the Lord High Justice by a later law. I'm not confident enough in my reading of this (UK law is not something I'm familiar with) to make the change myself, so I'm making this note, hoping that an expert might more easily notice it and check it out. 99.51.77.52 (talk) 03:10, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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