Clause 8 - Trial by Special Tribunal
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
9:00 am
Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Northern Ireland; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
Welcome back to the Chair, Sir Nicholas. As you will not be serving this afternoon, I should like to say what a pleasure it has been to work under your chairmanship. I thank you for your guidance.
New clause 18 would require defendants to appear before a court. It would make two changes: one is that defendants would be required to appear before a court rather than a tribunal, and the second is that they would be required to appear at all. We had a long debate on whether they should be tried in absentia or be required to appear before the tribunal, and the Minister said that he would go away and think about it. He has had time to do a bit of thinking, if not necessarily to come up with an amendment, but I do not wish to press that point to a vote.
Why is a special tribunal necessary when the court system is already set up and running? The Secretary of State’s explanation in the Chamber on Second Reading was not entirely satisfactory: he said that such proceedings would clog up the court system. I am not sure how he can make that assessment. Given the Minister’s and the Secretary of State’s responses to the questions that we have asked, we do not know how many people will qualify under the scheme. The Secretary of State’s explanation, if it can be called that, was unsatisfactory, so I should like the Minister to explain it.
As the Minister said that he would respond on Report, possibly with an amendment dealing with appearing before the tribunal, my new clause has become nothing more than a probing amendment. I do not intend to press it to a vote, given his reasonable approach, but I should like an explanation of why we must have a completely new system called a tribunal rather than the Crown court.