Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill |
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Lorely Burt: I thank the Minister for his response. I feel rather more anxious than I did before. He makes two points. First, although section 108 has never been used in seven years, we will only know whether it works or not when it is tested. His second point linked paramilitary activities and acquisitive crime. He thinks that section 108 will assist in dealing with that, which concerns me deeply. Although it is clear that a number of paramilitary groups have been involved in acquisitive crime, using an additional lever to attack the criminal aspect of such groups’ activities in Northern Ireland fills me with concern because it seeks to address the criminal aspect. Mr. Woodward: When we make those decisions, we do not do so lightly. It would be our ambition to repeal section 108 were it not needed, but the advice and the request that we have received from our security advisors, which in the case of Northern Ireland is the Chief Constable, is that the provision is necessary. As with the remarks by the hon. Member for
The hon. Lady asks us to ignore that advice, but we maintain our view that we need section 108, because that is the view of our security advisors, the Chief Constable and those who wish to put away the terrorists and prevent them from carrying out the atrocities that they would otherwise carry out. This provision, like the 90-day provision, is to protect the general public. Lorely Burt: I thank the Minister for that. To give the Government time to consider the matter, we intend to return to it on Report. Although I disagree with him, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 3 Scheduled offences Mr. Robertson: I beg to move amendment No. 7, in clause 3, page 3, line 18, at end add—
The amendment follows on from my previous amendments. The Secretary of State can currently schedule or unschedule offences. As I understand the legislation, murder, for example, could be scheduled or unscheduled. This is a probing amendment to find out the Government’s thoughts in an attempt to bring about greater normalisation. The amendment would give the Secretary of State the power by order, following consultation with the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, to determine that a specific case within a category can be tried by a jury rather than a single judge. The second part of the amendment states that section 75(8) of the Terrorism Act 2000, which is the provision of an automatic right to appeal if a trial is conducted simply by a judge, will not apply. If the trial were to be conducted by a jury, the normal appeal procedures would apply. I wondered whether it would be helpful for the Secretary of State to have, by order, the power to specify not only a category of offence—let us say murder is a scheduled offence—but a certain case if he were convinced that for a particular offence in a particular case a jury could be recruited that would not be subject to intimidation, and if he were satisfied that a trial could go ahead properly. Have the Government considered introducing such legislation? Column Number: 22 Dr. Nick Palmer (Broxtowe) (Lab): I am worried that the amendment would lead to at least the perception of discrimination between individual cases and of political interference or—to choose a less loaded word—involvement in the judicial process. If there were two similar cases, and in one case the Secretary of State decided to intervene to allow a jury trial and in another he did not, there would be a risk that the person who came off worse would complain about the result. I have sympathy with the objective, but I believe that it is risky. 11.45 amMr. Woodward: It is fair to say that we were confused about what might lie behind this probing amendment. Therefore, to be of assistance, I shall explore what I think may be happening. The amendment would create an additional mechanism for cases to be removed from the Diplock system. It would enable the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, to order that a particular case be tried by jury. Such orders would not be subject to the unfettered right of appeal of sentence or conviction available from Diplock courts. The current process for taking cases out of the Diplock system is well understood. The Attorney-General certifies out of the Diplock system any case that seems to him to be unconnected with the emergency in Northern Ireland. We think that the hon. Gentleman may misunderstand the process of de-scheduling, because all offences listed in the schedule are automatically tried by Diplock courts. The Attorney-General determines that the offence is not connected to the emergency and therefore de-schedules it. This process has worked well for many years, and successive Attorneys-General have undertaken the role with great care and diligence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) said, there may be some confusion; it is again is a question of understanding what lies behind the amendment. What is being proposed may be intended as an alternative to Diplock courts. The choice of Secretary of State and Lord Chief Justice seems somewhat odd on that basis, because it is a well-established principle that Ministers should not be involved in individual cases in this fashion and that the Lord Chief Justice’s interests lie in the smooth running of the courts and the management of the judiciary and not in the prosecution of individual cases. We would be concerned that involving him in the way set out in the amendment would risk placing the judiciary in the realm of the political. I do not know whether that helps the hon. Gentleman, but we would certainly want him to withdraw the amendment, because we suspect that, for all his good intentions, he may not have understood the principle behind de-scheduling. Mr. Robertson: I thank the Minister for his explanation, which was in accordance with what I understood the situation to be, hugely complicated though it is. I said that it was a probing amendment and given the Minister’s response I should like to look into the matter a little more deeply. Column Number: 23 Mr. Woodward: This is an extremely complicated issue, so I am more than happy to ask my officials to set out for the hon. Gentleman a detailed explanation in writing, which will canter through the system and explain and adumbrate in greater detail why we believe it appropriate to resist the amendment and why we think that there may be a genuine misunderstanding on the hon. Gentleman’s part in tabling it. None the less, we welcome the probing amendment, because it gives us the opportunity to set out our opposition and why we maintain it. Mr. Robertson: The hon. Member for Broxtowe made a reasonable point. As I said, this is a probing amendment to test the Government’s thinking on the issue. I would welcome such a detailed explanation and, depending on its contents, we could return to the matter on Report. Again I thank the Minister for his reasonable response and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 4 and 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill. New Clause 2 Mode of trial on indictment (no. 2)
—[Lorely Burt.] Brought up, and read the First time. Lorely Burt: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause would amend the way that the Diplock court system runs in Northern Ireland. Everyone knows the history of why single judges currently sit as both judge and jury in some cases. The Liberal Democrats are completely committed to the jury system of trial. We have fought against Government moves to infringe on that right during the passage of various criminal justice Acts in the past eight years. We had the option to table an amendment that would simply have repealed section 76 of the Terrorism Act 2000, but we were aware that that might not gain a great deal of consensus in Committee. We have therefore taken up the highly reasonable suggestion made by Lord Carlile in his last report on the operation of part 7 of the 2000 Act that three judges of the Crown court should sit in such trials, rather than one. It is fair to recognise Lord Carlile’s assessment that Northern Ireland judges apply rigorous standards to the quality of evidence in non-jury trials, but in making the suggestion he stated that a three-judge court would command greater confidence in one part of the community, without diminishing confidence, rationally, elsewhere. Column Number: 24 It is vital that we try to move towards a more normal system of trial for scheduled offences in Northern Ireland. Lord Carlile’s suggestion is very sensible. I agree with him that such a move would help to secure greater confidence in how the criminal justice system operates in scheduled-offence trials in Northern Ireland. The Government should seriously consider how best to move the situation forward. Mr. Robertson: Obviously, we have considered the option ourselves and taken an interest in it. I am not quite sure how the three-judge court would work. Would they have to be unanimous in their verdict or would a majority verdict suffice? Lorely Burt: I am not sufficiently familiar with what Lord Carlile said to be able to give the correct answer. Rather than pontificate, I will go away and get the right answer. Mr. Hall: What is your view on it—not Lord Carlile’s? Lorely Burt: My personal view is that they should be unanimous. Given the suggestions from the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, there seems to be a mood in Committee that we should not carry on with the current situation. I am hopeful that the Government will take away these helpful ideas and come back on Report with measures to improve the way that trials are conducted. Mr. Robertson: As I said in my intervention on the hon. Lady, we have some sympathy with her objectives, in the sense that her amendment is an attempt to move towards normalisation, and one judge sitting alone cannot be considered to be normal, but we have some concerns about how the system would work. The intervention was not intended to be awkward; it is important to establish how the system would work. Would the court be similar to the Court of Appeal, where there can be a majority verdict, or would the verdict have to be unanimous? Would there be a problem—some hon. Members might say that we already have this problem, although I do not think so—if one of the three judges had Unionist tendencies and one had nationalist tendencies? Where would the third one come from? I foresee some difficulties with that. The Minister will probably give a fuller explanation, but the backstop to the present system is the automatic right of appeal, which does not exist in the ordinary court system in Great Britain, where permission to appeal must be obtained. We do not have a principled objection to the Liberal Democrats’ proposal, but we are concerned about how it would work in practice. Lorely Burt: The point about three judges and one having nationalist tendencies and another having other tendencies would negate the whole ethos of the system in which judges, by virtue of the fact that they are judges, should be independent. We are in no way criticising the existing judicial system in which judges are above reproach and independent, but if there were
Mr. Robertson: I understand the argument and accept what the hon. Lady says. I was about to wind up by saying that when the Minister responds to the hon. Lady’s reasonable points he could perhaps comment on those that I have raised. Mr. Woodward: The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) raises important issues. She asked whether it would be appropriate now to change the Diplock system to one involving three judges—the system in the Republic—and, critically, what system should be in place in the longer term. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury asked how we should deal with jury intimidation in Northern Ireland in the longer term. That is relevant because the Bill could fall in 18 months or we may have to use the safety net for 12 months after that, but the Government would still need to confront the issue of how to deal with trials, which regrettably may still involve a degree of jury intimidation. The new clause is important. The questions raised by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury are also important and I am sure that the whole Committee believes that it is right and appropriate that the Government find a sensible, considered and measured way forward in the handling of jury trials and dealing with intimidation. Realistically, even if we can achieve our goal of security normalisation in the short term, it is likely that we would still have to deal with that in the environment that follows. It is appropriate to look briefly at the issues. New clause 2 would amend the Terrorism Act 2000 to provide that Diplock courts would consist of three Crown court judges. In her comments, the hon. Member for Solihull referred to observations by Lord Carlile. I pay tribute to him, but add that he has not been entirely consistent on the issue. He recommended three judges, but he also said that that was a decision not for him but for the Government. We know that when he feels strongly about an issue he is more than up to telling us that we should repeal something. He also said in his report as recently as 2004 that
In this instance we have an “on one hand” and an “on the other hand” and, perhaps significantly, he said that it is up to the Government to make a decision. For that reason, our decision at the moment is to maintain the present system. I will explain why. One issue as well as fairness that it is appropriate to consider in any judicial system is cost to the taxpayer. Although it should never be put before fairness, it is none the less right to look at the cost of the criminal justice system. Lord Carlile himself acknowledges that there would be resource and training implications if we were to move to the three-judge system. In fact, in his 2003 report, he estimated that 10 additional judges would be required to produce the same criminal justice
12 noonIn addition, three-judge courts could also create case management problems. Those involved in court administration would need to ensure that the three judges allocated were available for all stages of a trial, which could cause delays in the criminal justice system. We are concerned about delays in Northern Ireland anyway and are taking steps to improve the situation. It would be unfortunate if, in the hope of improving the criminal justice system, we created a by-product in the form of considerable delays. We are also concerned that there could be unwelcome speculation about the verdicts and the individual views of judges involved in such cases. It is not clear to me that that would increase confidence in any post-Diplock system. Of course, none of those concerns is insurmountable. However, I am concerned to ensure that we do not change a system that fundamentally works. Lord Carlile himself thinks that it works pretty effectively. Having said that, we are conscious that if we achieve the normalisation that we want to achieve within the time scale, there will unquestionably be problems in the future, as a legacy of the troubles in Northern Ireland, with regard to jury trials and the risk of intimidation. It will be necessary for the Government to introduce proposals to set out what should succeed the Diplock arrangements. I gave the House an undertaking on Second Reading and I will give it again: the Government will want to introduce for consideration by the House proposals relating to what an appropriate future system should be in Northern Ireland. However, I want to put on the record our firm view that, even though we will achieve, as we hope, the enabling environment and security normalisation, it is realistic to assume that, regrettably, intimidation will remain a serious problem that will have to be confronted in trials. We will need to find a successor to Diplock. One of the possible considerations might be the three-judge system—the sort of system offered in the Republic—for certain kinds of trials, where jury intimidation could be a problem. However, at the moment, we have not reached a settled view. In the spirit of the way in which we have tried to proceed on bringing resolution to the problems of Northern Ireland, we certainly want to involve cross-party consensus, if that is possible, since that is the most likely way in which we will produce the best criminal justice system for people in Northern Ireland. When we have firmer proposals, we intend to consult on them with hon. Members on both sides of the House. If possible, we might even consider pre-legislative scrutiny. That in itself is not a guarantee. What I will guarantee is that there is a spirit of wanting to consult wherever we can so that we introduce proposals that are bought into by all sections of all communities in Northern Ireland and by all political parties. Column Number: 27 Lorely Burt: I thank the Minister for his full and informative answer. We would appreciate the opportunity to return to this matter on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn. Schedule agreed to. Question proposed, That the Chairman do report the Bill to the House. Dr. Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast, South) (SDLP): I want to put on record my position regarding the Bill. We do not seek to amend it, but we oppose it because the time for this legislation has passed. It should be allowed to lapse on 18 February. Normality is gradually returning to Northern Ireland and, to some extent, the Bill indicates a delay in the acceptance of that return to normality. The history of emergency legislation in Northern Ireland is, to be honest, a sorry one. It is perhaps a history to which we should pay attention today and tomorrow because there are lessons to be learned from mistakes made during the past 30 years. I am thinking of the debate on the 90-day detention period that will take place tomorrow. Before this Bill, we had the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 and before that the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922. During that time, there was considerable abuse of the powers incurred by those Acts. The security powers have time and again abused the power vested in them, and in turn that alienated a whole community. Stop-and-search powers were used systematically to harass young people, particularly young men. In the 1970s, virtually every young male in a nationalist area ended up being lifted and pressed for information. Those who were not guilty and who were responsible for nothing were often pressed into making confessions or becoming informers, thereby compromising them in their communities. I know many parents who never left their teenage sons alone at home at night for fear that they might be taken away. Often, such young men got a beating. It was sometimes claimed by the authorities that they beat themselves up, which was quite amazing. With seven-day detention it was possible to get young men and women to confess to much of what the police required them to confess to, and quite often we had miscarriages of justice. I do not want to go into a long list, but there were some significant cases in this country. Mr. Campbell: Will the hon. Gentleman outline for the benefit of the Committee any representations that constituents have made to him during the past two or three years about any way in which they had been adversely impacted by the implementation of the provisions? Dr. McDonnell: I have had representations, though not perhaps in the past couple of years. All the hon. Gentleman’s remarks do is suggest that the time for the Bill has passed because it is no longer relevant. Column Number: 28 There were cases in this country, such as the Birmingham Six, the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four. All were subsequently released, charges were reversed and significant embarrassment was caused to the Government. Justice was degraded by the Diplock courts, which had no jury and only one judge. Again and again the legitimacy of their judgments was called into question by the use of unreliable informer evidence and mass trials, which led to unjust outcomes. All of that, and the failure of the judiciary to tell it exactly as it was in cases such as the Widgery tribunal and the appeals of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, served only to discredit the law in the eyes of the nationalist community. The result was—this is the lesson we must learn today and tomorrow—that such abuse of justice and maladministration plays right into the hands of those who care nothing for the law and care only about bringing chaos on to the streets. If we get the law wrong, we make an ass of the law and play into the hands of the very people we want to hold to account. Time and again, the people we were trying to hold to account scored one propaganda coup after another as even the most obviously guilty were able to garner sympathy when prosecuted in no-jury courts. Quite often, because of the malfunction of the law, they were able to walk away. That is the bitter legacy of emergency law in Northern Ireland. The emergency law undermined the real, honest rule of law—the very law it was meant to protect—and, even more fundamentally, undermined the safety of the public, which we are meant to guarantee. That is the legacy. It is one that the Government should heed before they rush in on another front tomorrow, when they attempt to introduce three months’ detention before trial and a whole raft of draconian measures that will serve only to alienate rather than to create security. That is why I, on behalf of the Social Democratic and Labour party, declare this simple position: we want to see, as quickly as possible, the end of the Diplock courts, a return to jury trial and the restoration of the principles of law that protect us all. We believe that that time is coming. We compliment the Government on the effort that they have made to bring about peace, but we must recognise that peace by bringing in normal laws as quickly as possible. That is why we oppose extending the law beyond February 2006. Mr. Woodward: I am sorry that I have to disagree with the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Dr. McDonnell). There are few matters in Northern Ireland that he and I disagree about in practical terms and, although I regret that he says he will have to vote against the Bill, I suspect that our disagreement is about shades of optimism rather than anything else. We fervently wish that we did not have to renew the legislation. Our ambition would be to have achieved the enabling environment in which security normalisation made it possible for us to stand here today and say, “We believe that the security of the people in Northern Ireland is no different from the security of people elsewhere in the United Kingdom”.
Mr. Campbell: In addition to the incidents that the Minister outlines, is not it the case that just last night in Strabane a colleague of the hon. Member for Belfast, South was the subject of a serious attack on his home and his person? That gives us an example of the need for this type of legislation. Mr. Woodward rose— The Chairman: Order. Perhaps it might be an opportune moment to remind the Committee that this is not a Second Reading debate. Remarks should be kept to a minimum so that the Committee can report the Bill to the House. |
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