District Courts

Magisterial Judges

Bucks County has 18 magisterial district courts located throughout Bucks County inclusive of the 18 judges and approximately 113 judicial clerks.

Responsibilities

Magisterial district courts are responsible for adjudicating all traffic and non-traffic citations as well as processing criminal and private criminal complaints inclusive of arraignments and preliminary hearings, the handling of civil and landlord tenant complaints up to a jurisdictional limit of $12,000 as well as parking violations.

Marriages
Magisterial district judges, as officers of the Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System, may administer oaths and affirmations and take acknowledgements. They also have authority to perform marriages. It is up to the individual judge’s decision whether he or she wishes to perform marriage ceremonies as there is no legally prescribed form for a wedding ceremony so religious services and vows conform to the secular content in which they are used.

Cases

The Bucks County district courts handle approximately 130,000 cases annually, receipt approximately $16 million and process approximately 10,000 criminal cases annually.

Magisterial district judge’s jurisdiction in criminal cases includes parking violations through other summary and misdemeanor and felony offenses including the initial phases of murder offenses. All misdemeanor and felony violations are more commonly called court cases. These categories of cases are filed in the district courts where they are preliminarily arraigned and afforded a preliminary hearing. At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing the charges are dismissed, waived to court or held for court and referred onto the Court of Common Pleas.

E-Pay System

Recently magisterial district courts transitioned to the E-Pay system for the payment of fines and costs at all of the magisterial district courts.  This allows an individual to pay fines, costs, restitution, collateral etc. online from any internet connected computer or from the lobby of the magisterial district court. For more information see the E-Pay Online Case Payment Brochure (PDF). For payments online please go to the Pennsylvania Judiciary Web Portal.

Forms