Clause 36 - Making, varying or discharging account monitoring orders
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)
This group of amendments would impose a requirement that requests for account monitoring orders be limited to investigations into serious criminal conduct. Such conduct is defined in clause 46(3). That is included to provide a definition for the serious forms of criminality specified in article 1(3) of the protocol.
During negotiation of the protocol, it was recognised that requests to trace accounts would place significant demands on the resources of banks in countries without central registers of accounts and that there was therefore a need for proportionality between the crime in question and the measure requested. The protocol explicitly states that the obligation to assist under article 1 is limited to those cases that we have for simplicity described as those involving serious criminal conduct.
However, a parallel restriction in relation to account monitoring is not appropriate. Requests for monitoring will be targeted at an already identified account, so they will not place such a burden on banks. Also, we can already provide historical details of activity in identified accounts in response to overseas requests, even without the new legislation. The article does not oblige us to agree to all account monitoring requests and the clauses are drafted so that we can keep a degree of discretion. We are obliged only to assist in accordance with our international obligation. Therefore we can impose any restrictions upon provision of the assistance provided that they are not contrary to that obligation. Account monitoring requests will be subject to general considerations, such as proportionality, and the Secretary of State may refuse to execute the request if he does not think that monitoring of an account is appropriate. In our view the present drafting maintains sufficient discretion while still ensuring that we can meet our international obligations, and enables us to request assistance in a wide range of circumstances.