Ministry declines to stand behind own summons — "ghost court" crisis deepens

I asked a simple "yes or no" question about court names, and the evasion says it all

If you got an invoice in the post with the wrong company name at the top, and when you called they said, “Don’t worry about the payee being right, just send us the money anyway” — would you accept that? Of course not. A name on a legal instrument is never decoration; it is a claim to authority. If the name is wrong or misleading, the document is counterfeit and void. That’s not pseudo-legal hairsplitting — it’s the bedrock of centuries of law, statute, and case practice.

I was summoned by “North and West Cumbria Magistrates’ Court (1752).” That name purports to be a court in its own right. If such a statutory entity exists, the summons is valid. If it does not, then the document is no more than legalese artwork — a keepsake or scrap paper for a shopping list. It is not enough to say there is “something similar” in statute. When the state wields coercive power, naming is a precision act. If the name shadows fraud, then whatever flows from it is not lawful, only legalised.

After half a year of stonewalling, I put the question directly to the Lord Chancellor on 15 August. Yesterday, after a conspicuous delay, I finally received a reply. It is a masterclass in evasion. And that is the scandal: the Ministry of Justice refuses to stand behind the very names it prints on its own summonses. An honest system would not need to distract, divert, and deny. I know it is immoral, you know it is immoral, and they know it too. And if it is immoral, it cannot be lawful.

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The opening of my letter:

Dear Lord Chancellor,

Re: Lawful constitution of named magistrates’ courts

I write to request an urgent, direct, and binary answer to a matter of constitutional significance affecting the lawful operation of the Single Justice Procedure (SJP) and the wider administration of justice. The inability or refusal to provide a direct answer to this binary question would itself raise serious questions about a constitutional defect in the administration of justice under the Courts Act 2003.

This is the core of it: pose a binary question that is not one of law, but fact. Does this name have a statutory instrument behind it?

The setup:

Two different magistrates’ courts are named in official proceedings against me:

• Single Justice Procedure Notice (SJPN) dated 18 November 2024 — names “North Cumbria Magistrates’ Court” (NCMC).

• Summons dated 10 December 2024 — names “North and West Cumbria Magistrates’ Court (1752)” (NWCMC).

The Courts Act 2003 requires magistrates’ courts to be lawfully constituted, typically within Local Justice Areas established by statutory instrument under Section 8, with their specific designation and operation having a clear legal basis (i.e., juridical genesis) in statute or administrative authority. Despite repeated written requests to HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice, I have been provided with:

• For NCMC — no statutory instrument at all. My Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was improperly reclassified without lawful basis as a Subject Access Request (SAR), breaching transparency obligations and compounding concerns about the constitutional integrity of the named court, and remains unanswered.

• For NWCMC — a citation to the Local Justice Area SI, which governs geographical boundaries under Section 8 of the Act but does not confirm the specific designation of “North and West Cumbria Magistrates’ Court (1752)” as a lawfully constituted court under the Courts Act 2003, as venue arrangements under Section 8 alone do not establish the legal basis for a court’s specific naming or operation.

The FOIA response for NCMC came later in August, and confirms it has no statutory basis. The point here being that with fraud, we are presented with something that looks “close enough” — think of your typical email phishing scam — but has anomalies. That names “look almost right” is probative of fraud, not legitimacy.

Now the ask:

The exercise of the state’s coercive power in criminal proceedings can only be undertaken in the name of an entity with lawful constitution and legal personality, against which remedies can be pursued if it acts unlawfully. As such, my binary question is:

Yes or No — Are “North Cumbria Magistrates’ Court” and “North and West Cumbria Magistrates’ Court (1752)” lawfully constituted magistrates’ courts under the Courts Act 2003?

If Yes — please identify the statutory instrument(s) constituting each court. If No — please confirm the lawful basis, if any, upon which they can issue an SJPN, a Summons, or any other order.

I respectfully request that your response directly addresses this binary question first, before offering any additional explanation or context.

The names either are legal persons with authority to summon, or are not. There is no middle ground. Does the State endorse these names that it itself used?

To close off, the significance:

This matter is not confined to my individual case. The SJP processes nearly 1 million prosecutions annually. The lawful constitution of magistrates’ courts is a foundational requirement for the validity of every conviction and order, making this a systemic safeguard issue for all court users. If any named court under SJP is not lawfully constituted, any orders or convictions issued may lack legal validity, undermining public confidence.

I am pursuing a Part 8 civil claim to obtain judicial determination of this issue, but my strong preference is for an administrative resolution. If the Ministry of Justice holds the relevant statutory instruments, there should be no difficulty in confirming them. If they do not exist, this should be candidly acknowledged so that the appropriate corrective steps may be taken.

I am not asking something unreasonable, only whether the State considers these documents, upon reflection, to be authentic.

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So, the response…

Dear Mr Geddes,

Thank you for your letter of 15 August addressed to the Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP as former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Your letter has been passed to the User Investigations Team, and I've been asked to reply.

The Lord Chancellor was asked a simple, constitutional question. Instead of an answer, my letter was shuffled sideways into the bureaucracy — handed off to something called the “User Investigations Team.” That move alone tells you everything: when the Ministry of Justice cannot face a binary Yes/No, it hides behind clerks and form letters. The question was put to the highest office in the justice system, but the reply came back from a faceless administrator. That is how the state signals it has no lawful foundation to stand on.

I understand you're concerned about the validity of cases brought to North and West Cumbria Magistrates' Court, and you'd like confirmation these cases are lawful, particularly in relation to the two cases which have been brought against you personally.

Notice how they immediately try to reframe my question as a personal grievance. I asked whether the court itself exists in law. They answered as if I were only worried about my own prosecutions. This is sleight of hand. By turning a constitutional defect into a “customer service” issue, they avoid the scandalous truth: if the court is fictitious, then all its cases are void, not just mine.

Administrative staff are not legally qualified and are unable to provide analysis or interpretation of statutory instruments or other constitutional issues in the way you request. If you have any concerns or queries about the legality of and enabling legislation for the courts, then you may wish to seek independent legal advice.

This is the real tell. I asked the Lord Chancellor whether the court named on my summons actually exists in law. The answer I got back was that “administrative staff are not legally qualified” and that I should “seek independent legal advice.” Translation: the Ministry of Justice cannot or will not stand behind the name it put on the legal instrument that convicted me. When the state claims the right to punish you in the name of a court, but then tells you to go hire a solicitor if you want to know whether that court exists, the mask has slipped. That is not law — that is dissembling.

In your letter, you refer to both a "Single Justice Procedure Notice" and a "Summons", which means it is possible that you've received notices from two different places for two different issues.

Here they try another sleight of hand — as if I might be muddling two different cases. But I’m not confused, and neither are they. The Single Justice Procedure Notice and the Summons are part of the same defective prosecution, issued under shifting labels. Suggesting they might be “two different places for two different issues” is a way of dodging the real point: the state cannot give me one consistent, lawful court name.

I should explain that whilst all cases brought to the Magistrates Courts must be authorised by a Court Officer or Legal Advisor prior to a summons being issued, it is not always the court who issues correspondence. In some matters the responsibility of issuing a summons lies with the claimant, and the format of these orders can vary if no specific format or template is required within the Magistrates' Court Rules. This can mean variations between notices, such as North and West Cumbria Magistrates' Court also being referred to as North Cumbria or Carlisle Magistrates Court.

Here the spin becomes almost comical. They tell me that sometimes it isn’t the court that issues a summons, but “the claimant,” and that “formats vary” depending on the rules. Translation: the name of the court on the legal instrument is just a kind of free-form template, not something you can rely on. So North and West Cumbria Magistrates’ Court might just as well be North Cumbria or Carlisle Magistrates’ Court. In other words, the Ministry of Justice admits it is putting different hats on the same head — without ever producing the statutory warrant for any of them.

Magistrates Courts generally deal with cases within their own local region to be more effective, but the Courts Act 2003 removed territorial restrictions and meant magistrates now have jurisdiction in all England and Wales and can deal with any case which is brought before them. A court is defined by the Justices of the Peace, rather than the building itself, and any order or summons issued by a Justice is valid, regardless of where they're sitting.

Now the mask drops completely. They tell me the Courts Act 2003 removed territorial restrictions, so magistrates can sit anywhere and call it justice. Then they add that a court is “defined by the justices” rather than the building, and that any order signed by a justice is valid. In plain language: the name on the summons doesn’t matter, the building doesn’t matter — just trust that somewhere, somehow, a magistrate waved it through. This is the Justices’ Clerks’ Society doctrine dressed up as reassurance. But it actually confirms the scandal: they no longer feel obliged to anchor a prosecution to a lawfully named court at all.

Magistrates' Courts operate in accordance with the rules and procedures set out in UK Law, which you can view in full online. A full copy of the Magistrates' Court Rules 1980, Magistrates' Court Rules 1981 and Local Justice Areas Order can be viewed on www.legislation.gov.uk.

And finally, the brush-off. They tell me magistrates’ courts follow the rules, which I can go and look up on the internet. As if pointing me to generic legislation somehow answers my binary question. But none of those links create “North and West Cumbria Magistrates’ Court (1752).” None of them show the statutory warrant for the name printed on my summons. Sending me to legislation.gov.uk is theatre — it looks like openness, but it delivers nothing. It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of “move along, nothing to see here.”

I hope my reply is helpful and details where you can find further information.

Yours sincerely,

[NAME REDACTED]
User Investigations Team

And with that, the matter is waved away. A month of delay, a diversion from the Lord Chancellor to a “User Investigations Team,” and finally a polite sign-off that pretends to be helpful while refusing to answer the one question that mattered. This is how the Ministry of Justice handles a constitutional defect: with a shrug, an incomplete name with just an initial, and a link to a website. The evasion is the answer — they cannot stand behind the name on the summons.

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The Ministry of Justice has admitted, in effect, that it summons people under court names it cannot evidence in law. Instead of giving a binary answer and pointing to the statutory instrument, it shuffles the question sideways, hides behind clerks, and sends you to a website. That is not an answer — it is an evasion that confirms the defect. It’s like the Treasury refusing to validate a historic bond; that denies the liability.

If the state prosecutes citizens in the name of fictitious courts, then every conviction secured under those names is built on sand. This isn’t paperwork trivia. It goes to the core of legality: the right to a tribunal established by law, not by creative formatting. One million cases a year pass through this process. The scandal is systemic, not personal. It’s not hidden or nuanced: these instruments have no backing in law.

The Lord Chancellor has ducked the question, which is an effective “no”. The Government Legal Department will now be asked to stand behind the names or admit the truth, however painful and consequential. And the public, once aware of the game, will not un-see it. The evasion is the answer: these names were chosen as a conscious act; if names don’t matter, then don’t print them!

The question is simple and unavoidable: by what authority do you summon us? If the Ministry cannot give a straight answer, then the practice dies — in court, or in the court of public opinion.

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