Clause 8 - Trial by Special Tribunal
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
9:00 am
Lady Hermon (North Down, UUP)
I, too, congratulate you on your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas, particularly during the long, dark evening sitting that we had on Tuesday. Your good chairmanship on that evening will not be forgotten by anyone on the Committee.
I support the opinion that clause 8 should not stand part of the Bill, and will speak to new clause 17. I object strongly to the clause remaining part of the Bill, because it invents a new body called the special tribunal. That title gives the impression that it is some august body. In fact, schedule 2, when read with clause 8, indicates that the special tribunal would consist of one person—
“a person who has held high judicial office or office as a county court judge (in Northern Ireland) or circuit judge (in England and Wales).”
Without intending any offence to the person who might take up that post, I believe that it is utterly unacceptable that that person should be a retired judge. The job will require an up-to-date working knowledge of the criminal law, rather than a retired person’s knowledge. The proposal is for very serious criminal offences to be tried and examined by a single person in a special tribunal, and I wonder whether the Minister can say how much experience of the criminal process a Northern Ireland county court judge is likely to have.
We already have a criminal courts system in Northern Ireland, including the Crown courts and others. The amendment, together with new clause 17, would ensure that the criminals covered by the Bill—it is criminals that we are talking about—would come before the ordinary criminal courts. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) questioned the Secretary of State’s explanation of the special tribunal and the whole apparatus that we are discussing. I remind hon. Members of what the Secretary of State said on Second Reading:
“I do not want this process to jam up the existing courts ... I do not think that the citizens of Northern Ireland think that it would be right ... to obstruct the timing and momentum of the normal criminal proceedings that are going through our Crown courts, possibly including cases following the Good Friday agreement. That is why we set up the parallel procedure.”—[Official Report, 23 Nov 2005; Vol. 439, c. 1549.]
Can the Minister tell us what evidence exists that the citizens of Northern Ireland object to criminals coming through the criminal courts? Is it actually the case—only he can answer this—that the judiciary in Northern Ireland, which I hold in high esteem, would not touch this procedure with a bargepole, whether it was 10 ft, 40 ft or whatever length one cares to invent? I just want him to tell us the views of the Lord Chief Justice and the judiciary, and say whether it was they who objected, rather than the citizens of Northern Ireland. Like hon. Members representing all constituencies in Northern Ireland—of course, they may be in the wrong Unionist party, or the SDLP—I have spoken to many constituents, victims and others about the legislation, and not one of them has objected to such criminals coming through the normal criminal courts.
I shall therefore press new clause 17 to a vote.