Coroners and Justice Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:45 pm on 5 March 2009.
With this it will be convenient to take Government new clause 30Anonymity in investigations: public interest immunity.
The new clause mirrors clause 78 for witness anonymity orders and has been drafted for reasons of consistency and clarity. Clause 78 directly re-enacts section 13 of the 2008 Act. To avoid any possible confusion between the two different areas of law, the provisions make it clear that the anonymity legislation does not affect the common law rules under public interest immunity. That is not to say that a witness anonymity order may not have effect to qualify the duty to disclose material under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, which we discussed earlier. A witness anonymity order that includes provision requiring non-disclosure of certain identifying information will, of course, do that, as we discussed.