Overview
Ever since the creation of the office of justice of the peace the tendency of English legislation has been to enable them to deal with minor offences without a jury. Legislation was necessary because, as Blackstone says, except in the case of contempts the common law is a stranger to trial without a jury, and because even when an offence is created by statute the procedure for trying must be by indictment and trial before a jury, unless by the statute creating the offence or some other statute another mode of trial is provided. In one remarkable instance power is given by an act of 1725 (12 Geo. I. c. 29, s. 4) to judges of the superior courts summarily to sentence to transportation (penal servitude) a solicitor practising after conviction of barratry, forgery or perjury (Stephen, Dict. Crim. Law, 6th ed., 113).
In other words all the summary jurisdiction of justices of the peace is the creation of statute. The history of the gradual development of the summary jurisdiction of justices of the peace is stated in Stephen's Hist. Crim. Law, vol. i. ch. 4. The result of legislation is that summary jurisdiction has been conferred by statutes and by-laws as to innumerable petty offences of a criminal or quasi-criminal character (most of which in French law would be described as contraventions), ranging through every letter of the alphabet. The most important perhaps are those under the Army, Game, Highway, Licensing, Merchant Shipping, Post Office, Public Health, Revenue and Vagrancy Acts.
A court of summary jurisdiction is defined in the Interpretation Act 1889 as "any justice or justices of the peace or other magistrate, by whatever name called, to whom jurisdiction is given by, or who is authorized to act under, the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, whether in England, Wales or Ireland, and whether acting under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts or any of them or any other act or by virtue of his commission or under the common law" (52 & 53 Vict. C. 63, S. 13 [III). This definition does not apply to justices of the peace sitting to hold a preliminary inquiry as to indictable offences, or in the discharge of their quasi-administrative functions as licensing authority. The expression "Summary Jurisdiction Acts" means as to England and Wales the Summary Jurisdiction Acts of 1848 (II & 12 Vict. C. 42) and 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. C. 49) and any act amending these acts or either of them. These acts define the procedure to be followed by justices in those cases in which they are empowered by statute to hear and determine civil or criminal cases without the intervention of a jury or the forms of an action or indictment at law or a suit in equity. Besides these two acts the procedure as to the exercise of summary jurisdiction is also regulated by acts of 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. C. 1, c. 43), 1884 (47 & 48 Vict. C. 43) and 1899 (62 & 63 Vict. C. 22), and by the Summary Jurisdiction Process Act 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. C. 24).
The act of 1848 repealed and consolidated the provisions of a large number of earlier acts. The act of 1857 provided a mode of appeal to the High Court by case stated as to questions of law raised in summary proceedings. The act of 1879 amended the procedure in many details with the view of uniformity, and enlarged the powers of justices to deal summarily with certain classes of offences ordinarily punishable on indictment. The act gives power to make rules regulating details of procedure.
The rules in force in 1911 were made in 1886, but have since been amended in certain details. The act of 1884 swept away special forms of procedure contained in a large number of statutes, and substituted the procedure of the Summary Jurisdiction Acts. The act of 1899 added the obtaining of property by false pretences to the list of indictable offences that could sub modo be summarily dealt with. The statutes above mentioned form a kind of code as to procedure and to some extent also as to jurisdiction.
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