Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) reports and (b) referrals were received by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office in respect of poor decision-making by lay magistrates in each of the last five years.

The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office’s (JCIO) statutory remit is to deal with complaints of judicial misconduct.

Judicial decisions, including sentencing decisions, fall outside the scope of the judicial disciplinary system as they can be only challenged through the courts. There have therefore been no referrals to the JCIO about poor sentencing or poor decision making by lay magistrates.