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Today, barristers automatically enjoy full 'rights of audience', which permit us to appear in any court in the land, from magistrates' courts through to the United Kingdom Supreme Court. By contrast, solicitors are only permitted to appear in the 'inferior courts', as they are (supposedly non-pejoratively) called - magistrates' and county courts - unless they undertake specialist courses and qualify as 'solicitor-advocates'.

criminal offences are divided into three categories. The least serious 'summary only' offences - motoring offences, common assault, minor public disorder - can only5 be tried in the magistrates' court. The most serious 'indictable only' offences - murder, rape, possessing firearms, serious violence and so forth6 - can only be tried in the Crown Court. The meaty filling of 'triable either way' crimes in between those two extremes - your burglaries, drug transactions, semi-serious violence and garden-variety sexual offending - can be heard either in the magistrates' court or the Crown Court, and the first appearance is used to determine which venue is most suitable (the 'allocation' procedure).

There are now around seventy Crown Courts nationwide, the most famous of which sits at the Central Criminal Court in London - the Old Bailey.

magistrates' court or a Crown Court.

The truth is that the entire case in favour of magistrates' courts, as we currently run them, is a sham. There is little sustainable rationale for their existence in principle, and no justification whatsoever for the way in which these courts operate in practice. There is no excuse for the amateur, sausage-factory paradigm of justice and 'that'll do' complacency that pervades 94 per cent of criminal cases, other than that most cynical political trinity: it's cheap, it's the way we've always done it and no one who votes either knows or cares.