Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Executive Committee Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 12:15 pm on 29 February 2016.

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Photo of David Ford David Ford Alliance 12:15, 29 February 2016

I beg to move

That this Assembly endorses the principle of the extension to Northern Ireland of the provisions of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill.

This is a private Member’s Bill sponsored by William Wragg MP, and it had the support of the Government when it received its Second Reading on 4 December 2015. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is the public body charged with investigating alleged miscarriages of justice, which involves it seeking a range of evidence and information, often going back years. Its skilled investigators, caseworkers and commissioners do that important work for potential miscarriages of justice in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own arrangements.

In the course of its work, the CCRC will look at information and evidence coming from a wide range of sources, including the police, the prison and probation services, the NHS, local authorities and other public-sector sources. The power to require that information, subject to judicial safeguarding, is set out in section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. However, the CCRC will often need to look at evidence and information held by private sources, such as individual witnesses, solicitors, private security firms or private medical practitioners. Under the current legislation, the CCRC must rely on cooperation and voluntary disclosure, because it has no formal power to require evidence to be disclosed from non-statutory organisations.

In essence, the Bill seeks to redress a legislative oversight from 1995 and give the commission much-needed powers to request evidence from private sources. That is its sole function.

The Bill contains only two clauses. Clause 1 provides a power to obtain documents and other material from non-public bodies. Critically, as set out in clause 1(1), that power will be subject to the safeguards of judicial oversight and a Crown Court order, so the CCRC could compel a private individual or organisation to provide material only by order of the court.

The new disclosure requirements would apply notwithstanding any obligations of secrecy or other limitations on disclosure. Clause 1(3) provides that the commission shall not disclose any information without the consent of the person concerned.

The CCRC has sought that additional power for some time, and I am content that the contents of the Bill are necessary and proportionate. The commission believes that having the power on the statute book will be enough to persuade many private bodies to cooperate with the CCRC voluntarily, thereby avoiding the need to invoke the power to compel.

Clause 2 sets out the proposed territorial extent of the Bill, which is the same as that of the CCRC, being England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the power already exists in Scotland, we had the opportunity to look at how it has worked there, where I believe that the process has worked well with no evidence of abuse.

I am, therefore, asking the Assembly for legislative consent to extend this Bill to Northern Ireland to ensure parity and consistency in investigations conducted by the CCRC. Given the demands on the legislative programme, there will be no opportunity to legislate for this change via the Assembly, and it will be to our advantage and to the advantage of those who suffered a miscarriage of justice to implement this change in tandem with England and Wales.

I appreciate that the Assembly's preference, like mine, is that we ourselves should legislate on Northern Ireland matters wherever possible. However, in this instance, we are talking about minor changes to a body that has a wider remit than Northern Ireland. For those reasons, it is appropriate that we should seek a legislative consent motion (LCM), and I ask the Assembly to support it.

Photo of Alastair Ross Alastair Ross DUP

I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Committee this afternoon.

As the Minister outlined, this legislation, introduced as a private Member's Bill at Westminster, will allow the Criminal Cases Review Commission to seek an order from the Crown Court requiring a person in the private sector to give the commission access to documents or other material in that person's possession or control.

I will briefly outline the Committee's consideration of the matter. The need for an extension to the commission's powers to obtain documents from private organisations and individuals, where it is reasonable to do so and under judicial oversight, was raised with the previous Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson by the commissioners in September 2014. At that meeting, the commission provided examples that highlighted the difficulties it encountered due to its lack of powers in relation to the private sector.

The Department of Justice undertook a three-month public consultation on proposals to extend the powers of the CCRC with regard to the private sector in Northern Ireland, including proposed judicial safeguards. The Department reported to the Committee on 17 September 2015 on the results of its consultation, advising that the 10 responses received were largely supportive of the change and the proposed safeguards. The Committee noted that the Attorney General and the Information Commissioner raised issues regarding human rights and data protection respectively but that sufficient provisions to mitigate those concerns could be put in place. In view of the general support for the proposal, the Department indicated its intent to legislate for this change.

The Department later advised that the Ministry of Justice intended to bring forward the same legislative change in England and Wales through the Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill, introduced in the House of Commons by Mr William Wragg MP in June 2015.

The Department further indicated that, as it would be unable to make the change by way of an Assembly Bill before the end of this mandate, the Minister was seeking the Committee's formal agreement for the legislative consent motion mechanism to be used. That would enable the introduction of the relevant provisions in the same timescale as in England and Wales.

Following consideration of information provided by the Department on the results of the consultation on proposals to extend the powers of the CCRC, the Committee for Justice agreed that it was content with the Minister's proposal to extend its powers to enable it to obtain documents from private organisations and individuals, and for the legislative change to be made by way of an LCM.

The legislative consent memorandum in respect of the Bill was laid in the Assembly on 27 January 2016 and referred to the Committee for consideration on 28 January. At its meeting on 4 February, the Committee for Justice agreed that it was content to support the legislative consent motion in relation to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill. The Committee subsequently provided all MLAs with a copy of its report on the LCM, which was agreed at its meeting on 18 February. Therefore, I commend the motion to the Assembly.

Photo of Raymond McCartney Raymond McCartney Sinn Féin

Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle. Like the Chair, we welcome the use of the LCM in this instance because of the work of the commission. I want to place on record our support for the work that the commission does. It has been useful in allowing people an avenue to explore whether there were miscarriages of justice. I think that there was a legislative oversight that has revealed that there is a gap in its ability to get relevant documentation to support a case. Therefore, we will support the motion.

Photo of David Ford David Ford Alliance

I do not believe that it is necessary to make any specific responses to the points raised by the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Committee except to make the point again that this was another example of good work being done between the Department and the Committee. I thank my officials and the Committee staff for the work that they did in putting it together. I certainly acknowledge the concerns that were raised and which the Chair highlighted, but I do believe that the issue of judicial oversight will ensure that these powers are not used disproportionately, will fall into line with what is already good practice in Scotland and will ensure that Northern Ireland remains on a par with England and Wales. With thanks to both the Members who have spoken in the usual lengthy debate that we have on these important matters, I again commend the motion to the House.

Question put and agreed to. Resolved:

That this Assembly endorses the principle of the extension to Northern Ireland of the provisions of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill.