Clause 62 - Cases that may be retried
Criminal Justice Bill
9:10 am
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
We now come to an important part of the Bill. I am, I hope, pragmatic about creating a fair mechanism that provides for retrials in certain circumstances. That should be balanced by the Government's stated desire that retrials should occur only in exceptional circumstances and for serious offences.
To set the scene, the Conservative Opposition believe that the key issue is whether the provisions are too widely drawn and should be restricted. It is a difficult issue, and I look forward to hearing a little more about the Government's reasons for drafting the Bill in the way that they have.
It is quite apparent that the scope of the clause is wider than when the Government first introduced their proposals, and it is certainly wider than I expected when I first considered the issue. Clause 62(1) covers the retrial of a qualifying offence that was tried on indictment. However, the clause also covers people who are acquitted on appeal against a conviction and even those who are acquitted
''on appeal from a decision on such an appeal''.
That would cover a case in which the House of Lords ruled that someone must be acquitted, but in which subsequent evidence came to light. We should probably consider whether that is pushing it too far and whether it is appropriate for such cases to be subject to retrial. I acknowledge, however, that one could at least argue that it would be reasonable to hold a retrial on the basis of new facts. However, we should at least ponder that. To make the position clear, the amendments are all probing amendments, and I hope to get a response from the Minister.
The lead amendment, No. 343, was designed to initiate a discussion about the term ''qualifying''. It is perhaps unnecessary to discuss in detail whether it makes a huge difference to describe an offence as a qualifying offence, given that schedule 4 does just that.
I shall run through the other amendments. Amendment No. 344 would also remove the word ''qualifying''. Amendment No. 346 would leave out subsection (8). That is an essential precursor to the issue of whether the list in schedule 4 is too widely drafted, and the Minister will see that some of the amendments would restrict the scope of qualifying offences to murder or rape or to those punishable by life imprisonment. Again, this is a difficult issue, but I would like the Committee to have an opportunity at least to consider whether the list in schedule 4 goes too far. I think that the clause is the right place, because if there are to be restrictions, schedule 4 would be abandoned altogether and the necessary offences would simply be inserted in the clause itself.
As I told the Minister, when I first heard of the proposal it was put that the most serious cases of murder or rape would be likely to lead to retrials. I suspect that that will happen in practice. I shall be grateful to hear the views of other members of the Committee about whether we are providing a mechanism that might create lots of pressure to reopen cases that would not come into a category that most people would consider to be the most serious. In practice, the justification for the change is the understandable public fear that people who might constitute a serious risk to the public should still be at large, having been acquitted of a serious offence when evidence has come to light that strongly suggests that they should have been convicted.