Jurisdiction of Magistrates' Courts
| Published date | 01 January 1956 |
| Date | 01 January 1956 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201835602000110 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Jurisdiction of Magistrates' Courts
THE basic principle governing thejurisdiction of magistrates'
courts has always been
that
justices have power to deal
with offences committed within the geographical area for
which they act, and this principle is re-enacted in section 2
of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 which provides that a
magistrates' court for a county or borough shall have jurisdic-
tion to
try
all summary offences and to deal with offences as
examining justices which are committed within the county
or borough.
There
are, however, a
number
of important extensions
to this general rule, and it will be the purpose of this article
to examine the circumstances in which amagistrates' court may
deal with an offence committed outside the county or borough
for which the court acts.
In
the
first place section 2(5) of the Act of 1952 preserves
any special jurisdiction over offences conferred on a magistrates'
court by any enactment not contained in
that
Act-e.g.
under
section 284 of the Customs and Excise Act 1952
and
under
section 684 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1894; and
again, section 3 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 gives
extended jurisdiction to justices in relation to offences
committed on boundaries or on journeys or those begun in
one local jurisdiction and completed in another.
It
is, however, with offences which are not the subject
of
these special provisions that we are essentially concerned.
The
main statutory provisions on thesubject are contained
in sections 1
and
2of the Act (which in this article will mean
the
Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 unless otherwise stated)
and
it will be convenient to divide
our
enquiry into three
sections according to the type of offence charged, as follows:
(a) jurisdiction as examining justices;
(b) jurisdiction to deal with an indictable offence
sum-
marily;
(c)
jurisdiction to deal with asummary offence.
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