JUSTICE OF THE PEACE is an inferior magistrate appointed in England by special commission under the great seal to keep the peace within the county for which he is appointed. “The whole Christian world,” said Lord Coke, “hath not the like office as justice of the peace if duly executed.” Lord Cowper, on the other hand, describes them as “men sometimes illiterate and frequently bigoted and prejudiced.” The truth is that the justices of the peace perform without any other reward than the consequence they acquire from their office a large amount of work indispensable to the administration of the law, and for the most part they discharge their duties with becoming good sense and impartiality. But being chosen from the limited class of country gentlemen in counties, they are sometimes exposed to the suspicion of the general public, particularly when they have to administer laws which are considered to confer special privileges on their own class. Further, as they do not generally possess a professional knowledge of the law, their decisions are occasionally inconsiderate and ill-informed. In great centres of population, when 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....
The commission of the peace is addressed to all the justices of the county, and assigns to them the duty of keeping and causing to be kept all ordinances and statutes for the good of the peace and for preservation of the same, and for the quiet rule and government of the people, and further assigns “to you and every two or more of you (of whom any one of the aforesaid A, B, C, D, &c., we will, shall be one) to inquire the truth more fully by the oath of good and lawful men of the county of all and all manner of felonies, poisonings, enchantments, sorceries, arts, magic, trespasses, forestallings, regratings, engrossings, and extortions whatever.” This part of the commission is the authority for the jurisdiction of the justices in sessions. Justices named specially in the parenthetical clause are said to be on the quorum. Justices cannot act beyond the limits of the county for which they are appointed, and the warrant of a justice cannot be executed out of his county unless it be backed, that is, endorsed by a justice of the county in which it is to be carried into execution. A justice improperly refusing to act on his office, or acting partially and corruptly, may be proceeded against by a criminal information, and a justice 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 with malice, and without reasonable or probable cause. But no action can be brought against a justice for a wrongful conviction until it has been quashed. By 18 Geo. II. c. 20 every justice for a county must have an estate of freehold, copyhold, or customary tenure in fee, for life or a given term, of the yearly value of £100. The vast and multifarious duties of the justices cover some portion of every important head of the criminal law, and extend to a considerable number of matters relating to the civil law. A complete guide thereto is Burn’s Justice of the Peace, in 5 large volumes, the thirtieth edition of which was published in 1869.
In the United States these officers are sometimes appointed by the executive, sometimes elected. “In some, perhaps all, of the United States, justices of the peace have jurisdiction in civil cases given to them by local regulations” (Bouvier’s Law Dictionary).
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