Clause 9
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill
9:00 am
Lady Hermon (North Down, UUP)
I beg to move amendment No. 31, in clause 9, page 6, line 24, leave out
‘in the course of his functions as’
and insert ‘whilst’.
I am delighted to sit under your chairmanship this morning, Mrs. Anderson, as we resume this interesting Committee on the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill. Clause 9 deals with restrictions on disclosure of juror information. It adds an important restriction to the Juries (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 on the disclosure of juror information that has come into the possession of various people through, for example, the electoral office and their work.
Committee members will have noticed the significant penalty. Proposed new article 26A(8) says:
“A person who contravenes paragraph (1) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable”
to a hefty fine or six months’ imprisonment, or indeed to both. The penalty for any criminal offence committed in contravention of proposed new paragraph (1) is severe.
My amendment relates to some rather curious wording. It pertains to
“a person who is or has been an electoral officer or a court official”.
Proposed new paragraph (2)(b) means that an offence is committed only if the person who is or has been an electoral officer or a court official obtained the juror information
“in the course of his functions as an electoral officer or court official.”
I dislike that wording because it is ambiguous. It implies that the person was acting appropriately when they obtained the information.
My amendment represents no slight on, or criticism of, the staff of either the courts or the electoral office. It attacks the Bill’s wording, because it implies that a person in either the electoral office or the court obtained the information relating to juries in the course of his functions. It implies that they have obtained it appropriately.
It is possible for an electoral officer or a court official to obtain juror information inadvertently, or of course deliberately, not in the course of his functions, but in walking past a desk and appropriating it. I have tabled the amendment to tease out the Minister’s explanation about why
“in the course of his functions”
is set out only in proposed new paragraph (2)(b), and not elsewhere when it qualifies the other people and the work that they do in obtaining juror information.