From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmagistracyma‧gis‧tra‧cy /ˈmædʒəstrəsi/ noun [uncountable] 1 SCTthe official position of a magistrate, or the time during which someone has this position2 → the magistracy
Examples from the Corpus
magistracy• What actually happened was that a less doctrinaire magistracy put local taxes up in order to provide bread for poor families.• Throughout the six years which have intervened these charges have remained in the magistracy, the subject of successive remands.• Here too wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of the magistracy, the clergy and the landed aristocracy.• The result was particularly disappointing, given the fact that the magistracy had already been purged by both Charles and James. 