Clause 64
Counter-Terrorism Bill
5:00 pm
Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham, Conservative)
I rise to support what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has said, but I do it more robustly than he has done, because he has been rather gentle in his approach to the Government in this matter. I remind the Committee of the iron rule of politics, which I mentioned several sittings ago, that once power is granted, it is always, on occasion, abused. Therefore one has to ask the important question: should this power be granted in the first instance? That takes one to the question, what in fact are we doing in regard to this power?
I acknowledge that jury trials in inquests are pretty rare. In the context of inquests overall, they are a small minority. It is also to be recognised that they are sometimes very important in terms of public confidence. When difficult deaths occur, the public sometimes expects there to be a jury. A good example of that is the jury that Lord Justice Scott Baker convened in the case of Princess Diana. It may be recalled that the Court of Appeal substituted a decision that there should be a jury trial for the previous coroner’s decision that there should not be one. That reflects the importance of jury trials in difficult cases.
What we are doing here is enabling the Secretary of State by himself alone to certify that a jury should not be convened. The circumstances that have to be satisfied are set out in new section 8A(1)(a), (b) and (c). I entirely agree with my hon. and learned Friend that paragraph (c) is couched in the most extraordinarily wide language:
“otherwise in the public interest.”
The Secretary of State may well hold that there are many things that it would not be in the public interest to disclose. Let me give some examples.
Let us say, for example, that a British national died in Guantanamo Bay and his or her body was repatriated to the United Kingdom. At that point, a coroner would have jurisdiction, and I think it is the case that the public would expect there to be a jury-based inquest into why and how that individual died in Guantanamo Bay. However, I can see the Secretary of State saying, “Ah. This is not something that is conducive to our relations with the United States, so paragraph (b) is satisfied.”
Or let us say that a plane carrying somebody who was the subject of extraordinary rendition landed at Heathrow. We know they have landed in the United Kingdom on occasion. Unfortunately, the person being transferred to wherever was dead. At that point, the coroner—normally speaking—would summon a jury; I am sure the public would expect the jury to be summoned. Yet, the Secretary of State could say, “Ah. We do not wish to see our relations with the United States imperilled. We will have this thing without a jury.”
Or let us say there is a situation which is rather closer to what we have in our minds at the moment. Say the police shoot somebody in a house. That does not have to be terrorist based: they just shoot somebody. I can well see that the Secretary of State may be persuaded, for example, that it is not a very good thing for the public to know the engagement rules under which the police are operating. They might dress it up by saying to themselves, “Well, it is not a very good for terrorists to know precisely what the engagement rules are that would justify the armed police opening fire.”
Once we start giving powers to exclude juries from inquests we can be quite sure that on occasion they will be abused. For example, I have a case in mind—perhaps the Committee has a case in mind—where a person was shot in circumstances that are a bit hard to explain. The police may feel uncomfortable about such a matter and seek to persuade the Secretary of State that it would not be in the public interest to allow a detailed inquest to be held and a certificate might be issued. As the Bill is presently drafted there is absolutely nothing to stop that.
A number of amendments seek to address this problem. My own preference would be to have some other figure involved. I suggested that the Lord Chief Justice should be required to agree that the criteria were satisfied. At the very least we should strike out the phrase
“otherwise in the public interest”
because, goodness knows, that is as wide as it conceivably could be. My strong view is that this Committee is in the business of safeguarding liberty and the public interest. We are not in the business of giving the Secretary of State the power to exclude juries whenever it is in his or her opinion in the public interest so to do.