Clause 76
Coroners and Justice Bill
2:45 pm
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, Justice; Harborough, Conservative)
It may be that the purpose of the amendments has fallen away owing to amendments that were not accepted earlier when I invited the Committee to accept a similar system for the coroners courts as we have for the criminal courts. Amendment 399 adds two categories of Appeal Court to subsection (6). I want to add High Court, Queen’s bench division. That would deal with appeals from the Crown court or magistrates court and from the coroners, dealing with matters equivalent to the divisional court—I think it is now called the administrative court, but that does not matter. It may well be that since all that does not come into the Bill, my use of the High Court, Queen’s bench division, as an appeal court may have lost its relevance.
Amendment 200 would include the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords and the Supreme Court. If the Government have their way, the Judicial Committee will turn into the Supreme Court and leave this building. It will be a huge white elephant across the road, established at vast expense—a total waste of money—but it appears that the Judicial Committee will translate itself into the Supreme Court unless we can do something about it. In any event, appeals might go from the Court of Appeal to the House of Lords with either the leave of the Court of Appeal or of the House of Lords. It is interesting that we do not appear to have legislated for that possibility.
Finally, I think the purpose of amendment 375 has probably fallen away as a result of this morning’s discussion.