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UK: Magistrates quit over government demand to impose charges
Clare Dyer, legal editor The Guardian
Monday 16 Apr 2007 Magistrates quit over government demand to impose charges · Home Office requires extra £15 from each offender · More JPs may go as anger grows over collecting 'tax' Three senior magistrates have resigned over surcharges on fines for offenders in what could be the start of a wave of revolts against the scheme. Other magistrates are angry about the Home Office-inspired initiative, which they say interferes with their discretion to make the punishment fit the crime and turns them into unofficial tax collectors. The government went ahead with the £15 "victims' surcharge", which JPs are required to impose on any offender they fine, despite opposition from the Magistrates' Association, which condemned the scheme as "fundamentally flawed". The money is intended to fund services for victims, particularly those suffering domestic violence, but the magistrates say it is unfair to penalise people fined for unrelated offences, such as motoring contraventions, evading TV licence payments or possession of cannabis. The three magistrates who resigned were Alan Williams, from Ely, Cambridgeshire; Judith Johnson, from Cartmel, Cumbria; and Christopher Foster, from Boston, Lincolnshire. Since the surcharge is relatively new, applying only to offences committed after April 1, other resignations could follow. Because officials botched the original statutory instrument bringing in the surcharge, it had to be redrafted at the last minute and guidance for JPs was not available until the last working day before it came into force. Mr Williams, 60, was the first to resign after declaring in court at Ely that surcharging a teenager fined for possessing a small amount of cannabis for the crimes of others was "morally wrong". Mrs Johnson, 61, who steps down today as a JP in Barrow-in-Furness, is a former head of the youth panel and served on the advisory committee that helped select JPs. She said: "It goes in the face of all justice: let the punishment fit the crime. "I can't administer a law that I have no faith in and that I don't believe in. It's a huge sadness." Mr Foster, 63, a magistrate in Boston for 15 years, said: "I took the view that the surcharge itself was unfair and unjust, and I didn't like the way the government were beginning to influence sentencing policy. I think it is unfair because it is a tax, not a fine. I'm not a tax collector. "I know that two other magistrates who I was involved with last Monday both feel that it is wrong, but they think they should fight the system from within. Well, in reality you can't. The only way you can fight these sorts of things is by making the protest, as others will no doubt do." http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2058081,00.html
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