High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a magistrate has limited law enforcement and administration authority. In civil law systems, a magistrate might be a judge in a superior court; the magistrate`s court might have jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases. A related, but not always equivalent, term is chief magistrate, which historically can denote a political and administrative officer.