Clause 66 - Interests of justice
Criminal Justice Bill
2:45 pm
Mr Hilary Benn (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Leeds Central, Labour)
We now come to the safeguards provided by clause 66 to ensure that an order of the Court of Appeal for a retrial is in the interests of justice. That is clearly set out in subsection (1). Clause 66 also includes a requirement that courts should consider whether a fair trial pursuant to an order for retrial would be possible. That would require the court to consider adverse publicity and its effect on a potential jury.
Amendment No. 266 would widen consideration to whether a fair trial would actually occur, and that is unnecessary and wrong. Part 10 seeks to strike a balance of fairness on whether a prosecution case should proceed to a reopened trial, and we are confident that this would be the case subject to the safeguards and the test set out in the Bill. However, the fairness of the trial itself is the responsibility of the court and the trial judge. If a trial can be fair, and that is the test that the Court of Appeal is being asked to consider in subsection (2), it is for the trial court to ensure that it is fair. That is not merely a semantic point.