Clause 7 - Guidance for criminal justice organisations on human rights standards
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr John Spellar (Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office; Warley, Labour)
I shall certainly give an explanation; whether it enlightens the hon. Gentleman of course remains to be seen.
Effectively, this is a B and B clause—a belt and braces clause. I fully accept that it is unlikely, although not unthinkable, that the section that the hon. Gentleman wishes to leave out would be needed. Subsection (7) provides that the Director of Public Prosecutions will take the guidance into account when preparing his code of practice for prosecutors. It is therefore hard to see how a clash between the two documents could occur. However, the clause is drafted to take account of all eventualities. I understand the problems that the drafters have in dealing with that, but I think they have achieved it in this case.
For prosecutors to function effectively, we must ensure that they are not subject to contradictory guidance. We must therefore ensure that there is clear guidance if any contradiction between the two documents unwittingly occurs. If any contradiction became obvious, however unlikely that is, steps would have to be taken to rectify it. This is a belt-and-braces measure, and I hope that what I have said explains the matter for the hon. Gentleman.