The writing is on the wall. The 600-year-old system of administering justice through lay magistrates, of being judged by our peers from our own communities, is coming to an end.

We are the only country in Europe to have such an outdated, amateur system.

Cynics describe it as law on the cheap but many magistrates and administrators now believe it is time for a radical rethink.

While no one doubts the integrity and public spiritedness of magistrates, we all know about inconsistencies such as one magistrates court giving a slap on the wrist and another handing down a six-month jail sentence for a similar offence.

Many magistrates are out of touch, others are slow and inefficient and therefore expensive in terms of court time.

And of course, there are always those who treat the "JP" tag after their names as a valuable social cachet.

The battle to be rid of magistrates is well under way. Home Secretary Jack Straw has commissioned a study and believes magistrates should be phased out and replaced with professional lawyers.

But he is up against serious opposition.

Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, thinks magistrates should retain a significant role in the justice system.

And both he and the Prime Minister are rightly nervous about the political repercussions of any dramatic change after the public fury caused by Straw's plans to restrict the right to trial by jury.

The displays of political muscle-flexing on this issue will be of Olympian proportions.

Then there is the European Convention on Human Rights. Due in October, it will really focus minds.

There is little chance of lay magistrates and their clerks surviving the new legal environment.

The convention's article six says people are entitled to a fair trial with an impartial tribunal.

A tribunal of three magistrates who are not lawyers being advised behind closed doors by someone who is a lawyer (or legally trained) hardly fits the bill!

There are other compelling arguments.

The law should be simple and straightforward if lay magistrates are to function effectively.

Even without the approaching Human Rights Convention, a spiralling mass of complicated legislation is making it tortuously difficult for them.

Closing many local courts and grouping magistrates in larger courthouses means their local knowledge is often devalued.

And, once upon a time, employers were prepared - and often proud - to let employees have time off to sit as magistrates. In today's workplace there is different thinking.

A day spent serving the justice system is an opportunity for someone else to get ahead in the promotion stakes.

It's a ruthless world out there.

Jack Straw should prove to have tougher muscles than Lord Irvine and Tony Blair's political nerve can be soothed.

Lay magistrates will slowly be eased out as, initially, more professional stipendiaries are moved in.

It is a sign of the times that eventually we shall have a completely professional legal environment.

The day of the dedicated amateur has gone.