Clause 72 - Authorisation of investigations
Criminal Justice Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I ask the Committee to consider a much wider issue in relation to this amendment. An inevitable consequence of the procedure on which we are embarking is that an acquitted person can be subject to a reinvestigation. Many parts of the retrial for serious offences give me a sense of queasiness. The prospect of the re-arrest and reinvestigation, property search and all the other paraphernalia of an oppressive process—what would otherwise be a deeply unlawful act by the police—against a person who has the existing protection of an acquittal gives me the greatest sense of queasiness.
It is interesting that although the Government have chosen to provide, at the end of the process, the important safeguard of the Court of Appeal procedure to decide whether a retrial should take place, the decision to allow for reinvestigation, which, one can see from reading the text of clause 72, is not a matter to be taken lightly, is an administrative one. It is left to the discretion of the Director of Public Prosecutions alone.
I have great faith in the DPP, but he is the representative of the state and the public in bringing prosecutions. That is an important issue. Just as it has been the case—although that might not apply after this Bill is enacted—that the issuing of proceedings or the laying of information requires at least scrutiny by the judiciary, or a judicial figure, before it can be embarked upon, we should not allow such a procedure to be re-embarked upon without some form of judicial scrutiny being provided.
I do not want to raise the status of this procedure to that of a detailed investigation, because I do not think that that will be required. However, my strong view is that the Director of Public Prosecutions should seek the authorisation of a Crown court judge before deciding that an acquittal is not a bar to a trial and giving his written consent to an investigation. He could go, or send a representative, to the Crown court on an ex parte application to explain the case to the judge and outline the grounds on which the reinvestigation should take place. He could then secure the court's sanction for what would otherwise be a massive intrusion into the life of an individual who was entitled to the protection afforded by his acquittal.
I take a strong view on the issue and unless I get satisfaction from the Minister, I shall press the amendment to a vote—it is that important. The judiciary is there to protect the individual's interests against the state, should it ever use its power oppressively. I am sure that 99.99 per cent. of cases will involve a 45-minute hearing followed by the granting of consent. However, judicial consent should initiate the process.