NCJ Number
85309
Date Published
1982
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This essay considers patterns of lay involvement in court administration in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Abstract
The administration of the English magistrates' courts is based on the system of county government. In each county there is a Magistrates' Courts Committee responsible for the administration of the several magistrates' courts within the county. These committees are composed of lay justices of the peace elected by their colleagues, so that the administration of these courts is in the hands of laypersons. The administration of the higher English courts is by civil servants in the executive branch answerable to Parliament through a Minister of the Crown, so that indirectly the people's elected representatives are accountable to the public for how the court system is administered. In the United States, recent years have seen the public increasingly and directly involved in the way in which courts are administered. Americans have flirted with ideas such as the involvement of citizens in judicial appointments, in judicial discipline and removal committees, and with a number of other notions designed to give some degree of community control or influence over the administration of the judicial branch. Regardless of the forms of public involvement in judicial administration, democratic theory does not permit court administrators to escape the obligation of taking into account public views of how courts can most effectively operate in the public's interest. This can be done by establishing machinery for direct public consultation and participation in judicial administration planning and policymaking and by regularly conducting surveys of citizen needs, opinions, and attitudes. Ten references are provided.