Written evidence to be reported to the House
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
1:15 pm
Stephen Shaw: Certainly I would have to think about the first part of what you said about being like a judge. Do I think it constitutionally more proper for the post holder to be outside the MOJ and responsible to Parliament? Yes, I do. Indeed, I have made that point before.
May I say something about clause 37, which is entitled,
“Investigations requested by the Secretary of State”?
It might be useful for the Committee to know that I originally asked for the clause some three or four years ago when the measures were first considered. It would enable the commissioner to conduct, in effect, ad hoc inquiries of the kind that I am able to do. I have done some of my most important work in public life conducting a number of ad hoc inquiries on matters such as immigration, probation and prisons, and I wanted the possibility of such inquiries to continue, so argued for the clause. I believe that it is now thought that if the courts decided that article 2 compliant investigations were required following a significant number of near-deaths or near-suicides in prisons, they could be carried out under clause 37.
I share your view, or I perhaps advance my own, that clause 37 subsections (7) and (10), which talk about the “duty” of the commissioner to do what the Secretary of State requests and about “directions” from the Secretary of State, are inappropriate measures to apply to a statutory ombudsman.