Clause 3 - Scheduled offences
Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill
11:30 am
Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Northern Ireland; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 7, in clause 3, page 3, line 18, at end add—
‘(6)The Secretary of State may, by order, following consultation with the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, determine that a specific case falling under a scheduled offence, shall be subject to trial by jury.
(7)In such a case, section 75(8) of the Terrorism Act 2000 shall not apply.’.
The amendment follows on from my previous amendments. The Secretary of State can currently schedule or unschedule offences. As I understand the legislation, murder, for example, could be scheduled or unscheduled. This is a probing amendment to find out the Government’s thoughts in an attempt to bring about greater normalisation. The amendment would give the Secretary of State the power by order, following consultation with the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, to determine that a specific case within a category can be tried by a jury rather than a single judge.
The second part of the amendment states that section 75(8) of the Terrorism Act 2000, which is the provision of an automatic right to appeal if a trial is conducted simply by a judge, will not apply. If the trial were to be conducted by a jury, the normal appeal procedures would apply.
I wondered whether it would be helpful for the Secretary of State to have, by order, the power to specify not only a category of offence—let us say murder is a scheduled offence—but a certain case if he were convinced that for a particular offence in a particular case a jury could be recruited that would not be subject to intimidation, and if he were satisfied that a trial could go ahead properly. Have the Government considered introducing such legislation?