Clause 9
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill
9:00 am
Lady Hermon (North Down, UUP)
I am grateful for that explanation, but I am slightly at sea in responding. I think that I took down the Minister’s words exactly and that she said that the provisions had been crafted deliberately and were “as robust as possible.” My concern is that the wording
“in the course of his functions”
pertains only, in clause 9, to an electoral officer or a court official. When the provisions of proposed new article 26A(4), for example, were crafted deliberately, and as robustly as possible, in relation to
“a person...who is...a member of the police service”,
the drafting was altogether different. The provision applies to a member of the police service,
“who obtained the juror information for or in connection with the making of checks, in accordance with jury check guidelines”.
It is not similar to the drafting with respect to electoral or court officials, with its reference to information obtained
“in the course of his functions”.
I am somewhat bemused by the differences in the carefully crafted drafting of the Bill. The Minister indicated that it is to be “as robust as possible,” but one would have thought that consistency of language between the lines of one clause would have helped to make it more robust and give the appearance that it had been deliberately crafted to be robust.