The answer, I fear, is because 800 years ago the state wanted low-level trouble and strife dealt with quickly and cheaply. It mattered not at that time, when individual rights and the presumption of innocence were half a millennium away from public consciousness, whether justice was being administered fairly, so long as it was being administered. In the twenty-first century, when no government worth its political salt will voluntarily pledge expenditure on something as headline-unworthy as the lowest criminal courts, the same attitude persists. It’s just the underclasses who are affected.
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