Clause 71
Coroners and Justice Bill
1:45 pm
David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat)
We now come to a series of difficulties with the existing legislation that the Bill does not resolve or change in any significant way. I shall talk first about amendments 451 and 452, then amendment 454 and finally amendment 453. Amendments 451 and 452 are about the extent to which threats to property could be sufficient to justify an anonymity order. Members of the Committee might remember that a number of hon. Members felt that in principle threats to property would be insufficient to justify anonymity, if they are not accompanied by a threat to a human being. A further point was raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which doubted whether the property justification was consistent with the European convention on human rights. It cited an opinion given by the Attorney-General of New Zealand to the effect that the equivalent provision in New Zealand statute was highly likely to be in breach of the European convention on human rights standard. The Government at the time insisted that in their view the use of property damage to justify these orders continued to be compliant with human rights requirements.
The central question is not whether a threat of property damage that also threatens people would be sufficient for an order, as that is obvious. A threat to burn down someone’s house is a threat to the people who live in that house. We are not talking about threats to humans that are carried out through a threat to property—such a case is not difficult and is clear justification for an order.