Note (Back) — Chapter VIII

180. Powers of the Justices.—At one time the functions of the justices of the peace were administrative as well as judicial, but by the Local Government Act of 1888 functions of an administrative nature were transferred all but completely to the newly created county councils,[248] and the justices to-day are judicial officials almost exclusively. Their judicial labors may be performed under three conditions, namely, by justices acting singly, by two or more justices meeting in petty sessions, and by the whole body of justices of the county assembled in quarter sessions. The powers of a justice acting alone are those largely of the ordinary police magistrate. He may order the arrest of offenders; he conducts preliminary examinations and releases the accused or commits them for indictment by a grand jury; and he hears cases involving unimportant breaches of the law and imposes small penalties. The justices sitting by twos in petty sessions exercise an extensive summary jurisdiction over offenses specified minutely by the law.[249] They sit without a jury, but appeal can be carried, as a rule, to the justices at quarter sessions and even, on questions of law, to the High Court. Four times a year all of the justices of the county, or such of them as care to be present, meet in quarter sessions. The jurisdiction here exercised is in part appellate and in part original. The court tries, without a jury, all cases appealed from petty sessions, and it tries, with a jury, and after indictment by a grand jury, all cases involving offenses not of a minor nature, save that the most serious offenses, punishable in most instances with death or life imprisonment, are reserved for trial in the assizes, i.e., by judges from Westminster travelling on circuit. By means of the writs of mandamus and certiorari the actual proceedings of quarter sessions are controlled not infrequently by the superior courts.[250]