JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, in England, a magistrate ap pointed by special commission under the great seal to keep the peace within the jurisdiction for which he is appointed. The title is commonly abbreviated to J.P. and is used after the name. The justices of the peace perform without any other reward than the dignity they acquire from their office a large amount of work in dispensable to the administration of the law, including the initia tory stages of all criminal proceedings. Although usually not pro fessional lawyers (and therefore unversed in the rules of evidence), for the most part they discharge their multifarious duties with be coming good sense and impartiality. For centuries they were nec essarily chosen mainly from the landed gentry ; but at the present day both sexes and all classes of the community are repre sented on the magisterial bench irrespective of social status or political bias, it being recognized—at least in theory—that capacity duly to administer justice rather than creed, position or party influence should regulate selection and appointment. In great cen tres of population, where the judicial business of justices is heavy, it has been found necessary to appoint paid justices or stipendiary magistrates to do the work, and an extension of the system to the country districts has been often advocated. Where a borough council desire the appointment of a stipendiary magistrate they may present a petition for the same to the secretary of State and it is thereupon lawful for the king to appoint to that office a bar rister of seven years' standing. He is by virtue of his office a jus tice for the borough, and receives a yearly salary, payable in four equal quarterly instalments. On a vacancy, application must again be made as for a first appointment. There may be more than one stipendiary magistrate for a borough.
The commission of the peace assigns to justices the duty of keeping and causing to be kept all ordinances and statutes for the conservation of the peace, and for the quiet rule and governance of the people. Justices for counties are appointed by the Crown on the advice of the lord chancellor, usually with the recommenda tion of the lord lieutenant of the county. Justices for boroughs having municipal corporations and separate commissions of the peace are appointed by the Crown, the lord chancellor either adopt ing the recommendation of the town council, the local advisory committee, or acting independently. Justices cannot act as such until they have taken the oath of allegiance and the judicial oath.
A justice for a borough, while acting as such, must reside in or within seven miles of the borough or occupy a house or other property in the borough, but he need not be a burgess. The mayor of a borough is ex officio a justice during his years of office and during the succeeding year. As mayor he takes precedence over all borough justices and is entitled to take the chair at all their meetings. But, except when dealing with business relating to the
borough, he has not precedence over justices acting in or for the county in which the borough or any part thereof is situated, nor has he precedence over a stipendiary magistrate engaged in ad ministering justice (45/46 Vict. ch. 50, s. 155). The chairman of a county council is ex officio a justice of the peace for the county, and the chairman of an urban or rural district council for the county in which the district is situated. The Criminal Justice Act, 1925 (s. 31) empowers the issue of process by justices throughout England and Wales without endorsement. But English warrants for indictable offences in other parts of Great Britain must be "'backed" or endorsed by a justice of the jurisdiction in which they are to be executed. A justice acting partially and corruptly may be proceeded against by a criminal information, and a justice improperly refusing to act may be compelled to do so by the high court of justice. An action will lie against a justice for any act done by him in excess of his jurisdiction, and for any act within his jurisdiction which has been done wrongfully and maliciously and without reasonable or probable cause. But no action can be brought against a justice for a wrongful conviction until it has been quashed. The Justices of the Peace Act 1906, abolished the property qualification for county justices. It also removed the necessity for residence within the county, substituting therefor the same residential qualification as for borough magistrates, viz., "within seven miles thereof." The same act removed the disquali fication of solicitors to be county justices and added to the existing power to remove other justices from the commission of the peace the power to exclude ex officio justices.
The justices for every petty sessional division of a county or for a borough having a separate commission of the peace must appoint a fit person to be their salaried clerk. He must be either a barrister of not less than 14 years' standing, or a solicitor of the supreme court, or have served for not less than seven years as a clerk to a police or stipendiary magistrate, or have been attached to a metropolitan police court. The multifarious and constantly increasing duties and enhanced powers of justices embrace some portion of every important branch of the criminal law and include a considerable number of matters more particularly relating to the civil law.
In the United States, the justices of the peace usually are elected, although sometimes they are appointed by executive authority. The justices of the peace are the lowest of the state courts, and their limitation in civil matters generally is about $200, and in criminal matters they may try only misdemeanors. They are not courts of record. Ordinarily in criminal cases they may not impose a jail sentence, if the person tried prefers to pay the fine imposed.