Clause 62
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
4:00 pm
David Burrowes (Shadow Minister, Justice; Enfield, Southgate, Conservative)
I endorse the remarks of the hon. Members for Leyton and Wanstead and for Somerton and Frome. My concern is to avoid getting into a press-release type of debate—that the clause is all about rebalancing the criminal justice system agenda; plainly it is not. That does not make sense. We are all concerned about the victim, and we should all be concerned about justice. Justice shows its face in various areas. We want justice for the victim and we want to ensure that those who are found guilty are properly prosecuted and sentenced appropriately.
None of us supports miscarriages of justice. They do no good to the person who is a victim of one, and furthermore, the victim of the offence itself will not be assured that justice has been served by that miscarriage of justice. It is wrong to use the clause to seek to equate and bring into line those who have been the victims of miscarriages of justice with other victims. For the Government to introduce this legislation on the basis of bringing compensation for the wrongly convicted into line with that for victims of crime, is the wrong approach. We need some assurance from the Minister that that is not the rationale behind the clause, but I doubt that we will be convinced.
Presently, there is no time limit for making an application for compensation in respect of a miscarriage of justice, so applications can come before the Secretary of State many years after the convictions have been quashed. Why is that inappropriate, and why should there be a two-year limit? Why has that period been chosen? Why has the Government set the limit of £500,000? Is it really about wanting to bring it into line with claims made by victims of crime? Surely, that is not an appropriate rationale. Surely, the position is that those who are the victims of a miscarriage of justice should be looked at in their own right. They will not be able to take any civil action, and that is why there is good sense in the original, existing scheme, whereby the assessment of damages for a miscarriage of justice is governed by the assessment of damages for civil wrongs. The position was that assessments sought to put the applicant back to the financial position in which they would have been had the miscarriage of justice not occurred. That is the good sense of the original and existing provisions.
The Government have sought to create an artificial barrier with regard to the time limit and the amount to be paid out to try to justify that “rebalancing of justice” exercise. That is wholly wrong. The only agency that is in a position to right that wrong is the state, which should certainly accept the responsibility to put the individuals concerned back in their original position in reasonable terms. The cap that has been put in place is wholly arbitrary, and there is no justification for it. Indeed, the state has no justification for escaping its responsibility to compensate the victims of the mistake. Only the state is in a position to correct it, and that needs to be done wholly and reasonably without any artificial levels.