The criminal courts and lay people: the classification of offences, the criminal court structure and appeals, and the role, selection and evaluation of magistrates and juries.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to classify criminal offences, describe the criminal court structure and the appeal routes, and explain and evaluate the role of magistrates and juries as lay people in the justice system.

Classification of offences and the courts

Appeals from the Magistrates' Court go to the Crown Court (against conviction or sentence) or, on a point of law, to the King's Bench Division by way of case stated. Appeals from the Crown Court go to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) and, on a point of law of general public importance, to the Supreme Court.

Magistrates

Magistrates try summary offences, deal with some either-way cases, conduct preliminary hearings, decide bail, and sit in the Youth Court. Advantages include local knowledge, cost (they are unpaid), and lay involvement in justice. Disadvantages include inconsistency in sentencing, a tendency towards a prosecution or middle-class bias, and reliance on the legal adviser.

Juries

A jury in the Crown Court has 12 members, randomly selected from the electoral register, who must be aged 18 to 75 and meet eligibility requirements under the Juries Act 1974 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The jury decides the facts and returns a verdict; the judge decides the law and sentence.

Advantages of jury trial include public confidence, jury equity (a jury can acquit against the evidence, as in R v Ponting), and open justice. Disadvantages include secrecy of deliberations (R v Mirza), the risk of bias or research into the case (R v Young, the ouija board case), and the cost and length of jury trials.

The selection of juries is designed to secure a fair cross-section. Names are taken at random from the electoral register; jurors must be aged 18 to 75 and ordinarily resident, and disqualification applies to certain offenders and the mentally disordered. The widening of eligibility under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (so that judges, lawyers and police can now sit) is sometimes criticised as risking a professional outlook on the jury. The contempt rule in section 8 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 makes it an offence to disclose what passes in the jury room, which protects frankness but, as R v Mirza shows, prevents the courts from investigating even apparent misconduct. Vetting and the challenge procedures (challenge for cause, and the prosecution's right to stand by) further shape the panel. A strong evaluation links these selection features to the competing aims of impartiality, representativeness and public confidence, and weighs jury equity against the unpredictability and expense of jury trial, noting proposals to remove juries from complex fraud cases.

How this topic is examined

Criminal courts and lay people are examined through descriptive questions on classification and structure and evaluative questions on magistrates and juries. Examiners reward matching each offence to its court, accurate selection detail, and a balanced assessment of lay involvement with named cases.