The single justice procedure is used in magistrates’ courts and handles around 40,000 minor offences every month – such as not paying for a TV licence or car insurance. It was used to prosecute a number of people for allegedly breaking lockdown rules during Covid.
The process, which does not involve a public hearing, was introduced under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015.
Train companies were allowed to use it for alleged fare evasion the following year.
However, some rail operators brought private prosecutions against individuals under the Regulation of Railways Act from 1898.
They were not allowed to use the older act for single justice procedures.
In a summary of his judgment, Judge Goldspring said “parliament did not envisage” train fare offences being prosecuted using SJPs
“They should never have been brought through that process,” he said.
Earlier this year, the Magistrates’ Association, which represents more than 12,000 magistrates in England and Wales, said some of its members were “uncomfortable with the process as it currently works” and that it needed reform.
The Magistrates’ Association’s national chair Mark Beattie said that while the group believed the principle of the procedure is “good”, the system is not “perfect”.
He said some magistrates “have told us about flaws in the way it operates and the harm that this can have on some of society’s most vulnerable people”.
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