Clause 14
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill
9:30 am
Lady Hermon (North Down, UUP)
In fairness to the hon. Member for Foyle, who is not here to move his amendments, let me say that he diligently attends to all his parliamentary duties in the House, but that he had to fly to Dublin yesterday—I know that that is no excuse—and had a commitment in Belfast this morning. I am sure that no offence is intended to you, Mrs. Anderson, or to colleagues on the Committee.
I oppose the clause because I am deeply concerned about the ramifications of what we have just discussed. We have had a useful debate so far about what appeared to be a quite innocuous extension of the powers of the Human Rights Commission. I am not a great critic of the commission, as the Minister said, but I want us to be consistent and get things right, and we have the opportunity to do so while the Bill is before us.
The Minister tried to assuage the fears of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury by responding with what it is quite right to call the facts. The facts are that an appeal could be taken to the county court where the commission has served a notice on an individual and drawn up terms of reference under later clauses. That is all well and good if a person can afford to take an appeal to the county court, but let us think of the many police officers who retired under the Patten package.
After the Belfast agreement, we had the Patten report, and many police officers left what was the Royal Ulster Constabulary—I am, of course, married to a former chief constable of the RUC, although that is not relevant; I merely draw it to the Committee’s attention to it. I am extremely concerned about the situation in respect of the police ombudsman investigating complaints of alleged police misconduct by serving or past officers. Many past officers receive no financial assistance in making a court challenge to a decision of the ombudsman.
The same situation will apply when, under subsection (4), the Human Rights Commission alone decides to issue a notice when it has
“considered whether the matter to which the notice relates has already been sufficiently investigated by another person, and”
when, in its wisdom, it has
“concluded that it has not.”
The commission will make an entirely subjective decision about whether to proceed with an investigation.
Subsection (6) states:
“where the Commission thinks that a person—
(a) has failed without reasonable excuse to comply with a notice”.
Most bizarrely of all, it goes on to state:
“or
(b) is likely to fail without reasonable excuse to comply with a notice.”
The commission will decide on whether a person has failed, or is likely to fail without reasonable excuse, to comply with a notice. The matter then becomes an offence; subsection (8) states that someone “commits an offence” if they do not “comply with a notice”.
By dint of the clause, we will again give powers to the Human Rights Commission that mean that the person at the other end—the one who is receiving the notice of an investigation—is seriously disadvantaged in terms of financial support should they apply to the county court to get rid of the wretched notice.
If the Minister is intent on driving forward with the clause, I should remind him of the suggestion that I made on Second Reading. We have a chief inspector of criminal justice, a post established by the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, who can examine the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the police service reserve, the state pathologist and the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. The clause gives extensive powers to the Human Rights Commission, which is not accountable to, or reviewable by, any other body, but it should be—it ought, at least, to be inspected. I urge the Minister not to tell the Committee that the commission is independent and therefore cannot be open to review by the chief inspector of criminal justice, because he knows full well that the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland is also a statutory independent body and that it is reviewable and can be inspected by the chief inspector of criminal justice.
The precedent has been set, so when Minister defends the clause, as he will do, I urge him to assure the Committee that he will seriously examine extending the powers of the chief inspector of criminal justice, so that people can have confidence that the Human Rights Commission is not off on a frolic of its own trailing through past cases that have already been investigated by the police ombudsman, the PSNI and various other bodies. I am horrified at the manner in which the clause stands at present, and I shall certainly vote against it.