The Magistrates Court

In England and Wales, a magistrates' court is a lower court which hears matters relating to summary offences and some triable either-way matters. Some civil law issues are also decided here; while family proceedings used to be dealt with in Magistrates' Courts, they are now dealt with in the Family Court. In 2010 there were 320 magistrates' courts in England and Wales; by 2020, a decade later, 164 of those had closed. The jurisdiction of magistrates' courts and rules governing them are set out in the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980.