Ethical Issues for Magistrates: Manual for Trainers

This training manual was a landmark in an ongoing programme to develop an understanding of judicial ethics and to help magistrates deal more easily with the many, complicated ethical issues that arise in their day-to-day work. Many magistrates had raised concerns about their limited understanding ofjudicial ethics, the absence of any real discussion of ethical issues amongst magistrates, and the need for thorough and ongoing training in ethics.

The first stage of the programme involved comparative and local research. A series of discussions with magistrates and workshops at which newly developed training exercises were tried out comprised the second stage of the programme. The production of this manual marked the conclusion of the third stage.

The manual is divided into six training modules, each of which includes a discussion of the subject at hand and a number of exercises which can be used in training. Most of the examples that are included were provided by the magistrates with whom we discussed the manual or who participated in the workshops.