Examination of Witnesses (Quesstions 80
- 99)
THURSDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2000
MR JOHN
SPELLAR MP, MR
JASON BETTELEY,
BRIGADIER ANDREW
RITCHIE CBE, COMMODORE
DAVID HUMPHREY,
AIR COMMODORE
RICK CHARLES
AND MR
DAVID WOODHEAD
80. Yes. How often has it been your experience
over a period of time that a decision, when those notes for guidance
have been used by a commanding officer, has been challenged further
down?
(Commodore Humphrey) In the chap complaining?
81. Yes.
(Commodore Humphrey) Very, very rarely. I cannot even
remember a complaint against summary punishment. There must have
been one or two.
82. But it is a very good guide.
(Commodore Humphrey) It seems to work. It achieves
the object of maintaining discipline. For a new commanding officer
he can see the sort of bracket. It seems to work anyway.
83. In your role as Judge Advocate, would you
suggest that Crispin Blunt's point about continuing to allow different
regiments to have a different interpretation would lead to more
challenges?
(Commodore Humphrey) That was the purpose of producing
the Guide, to get consistency within a bracket.
Mr Hancock: You did not say that. I think
we needed that on the record. I think this is a major step in
the right direction. To allow individual regiments for one reason
or another to maintain any sort of sectarian right to themselves
to deal with this would be a big mistake.
Mr Blunt: That is an argument against
summary justice altogether.
Mr Hancock
84. No, that is an argument against you allowing
different regiments to discriminate.
(Commodore Humphrey) I should not speak for the Army
but I know they are interested in our Green Guide principle. It
is to ensure a degree of consistency, getting it in the right
ball park and that is what we use it for. It stops challenges
then that because you have something so way out it must be challenged.
(Brigadier Ritchie) I am not suggesting uniformity
here. There are very good reasons why some regiments view certain
things in different ways from others. My word is "consistency".
85. Can I ask about the staff numbers that you
are going to take on to deal with these changes and how many of
those will actually be lawyers? Knowing how difficult it has been
for services to attract specialists, such as doctors, and maintain
them, I cannot imagine that lawyers are going to get more money
by being a service lawyer than they are a civilian lawyer. How
are you going to overcome that problem of recruitment and retention?
(Brigadier Ritchie) Speaking for the Army, we are
seeking, and indeed actively recruiting, 15 additional military
lawyers for the Army Legal Services. I am afraid I have not got
the exact number but I believe we have got 11 or 12 and there
are three or so more to get. There was a major recruiting drive
before Christmas. General Risius, the Director of Army Legal Services,
is confident that he has got, or is getting, the right people
in the right numbers.
(Commodore Humphrey) For the Navy, of course, we are
different, we do not have a legal branch as such, we are all line
officers who are lawyers. All we have done in this is we feel
it sufficient to make two extra full-time legal posts and we have
the capacity from a pool of qualified lawyers to man those posts.
(Air Commodore Charles) Although we are fishing from
the same pond as the Army, we have been recruiting three and we
have been successful.
86. When you recruit these lawyers into the
Army at what rank do they come in?
(Air Commodore Charles) In the Air Force it would
be Flight Lieutenant, Captain.
(Brigadier Ritchie) Captain.
Chairman: So what salary scale would
that be?
Mr Hancock
87. £25,000 to £30,000?
(Air Commodore Charles) I believe the starting salary
is of the order of £26,500.
88. Coming to the costs again, on the £6.5
million that it is estimated this is going to cost, where is that
going to be found from within the MoD budget or are you expecting
this resource to be put to you from the Treasury to help?
(Mr Spellar) It is to be found within existing resources.
89. Year by year.
(Mr Spellar) Yes.
90. Are you confident that the necessary personnel
and systems are in place in all three services to actually make
this work, not only the lawyers but the training for the commanding
officers and the back-up that is needed to ensure that once this
becomes legislation you can bring this in by, what is it, the
autumn of this year, October of this year?
(Mr Spellar) There are two levels of training that
we need to look at. One is training of officers who are already
in post and in command and then also, of course, building it into
the future training programme for officers as well. We are addressing
both of those.
91. My final question is about the whole document
itself. I suspect that this will be amended, not least by the
Government at some stage as it moves through its various manoeuvres
in this House and in the Other Place.
(Mr Spellar) It has been through the Other Place.
92. I know, but when it ends up with us, we
are talking about it as it is here and I have not got the amendments
that were put to it. Are you satisfied now that this is beyond
challenge outside UK jurisdiction, that this Bill is not going
to be the subject of prolonged legal activity in Europe?
(Mr Spellar) On the basis of the legal advice that
we have had, we believe that this ensures compliance with the
European Convention but, as I said to Mr Blunt, I would never
make an absolute prediction in these matters, merely to say that
we have taken the appropriate legal advice to ensure that we are
compliant.
93. Can I ask a question about NATO allies and
EU partners and others who have signed up for the European Convention.
Are we satisfied that their armed forces have nothing better than
this or is it now very much in line with what others have?
(Mr Woodhead) Our understanding, Mr Hancock, is that
the other European countries which we have information about do
not have a summary justice system in the same way that we do in
the United Kingdom. Their summary justice systems seem to be confined
to dealing purely with narrow service disciplinary offences.
94. The Dutch have a system which is very similar
to our's. The Dutch Navy is virtually a model of what the Royal
Navy has. I have a friend of mine who deals with it and we were
talking about it. He says there is virtually a model of what the
Royal Navy has been working to.
(Mr Spellar) And?
95. I am saying the challenge then comes that
you have service personnel who will claim that we have fallen
short of what is available to other armed forces' personnel in
other countries who have signed up for the European Convention.
(Mr Spellar) In what way are you saying it has fallen
short?
96. I am not saying it is, I am asking you,
you are the ones who have produced this. I am asking have you
benchmarked this against what is available and are you satisfied
this is as good as you are going to get and it is not going to
be challenged because it is defective and not as good as others
have got?
(Commodore Humphrey) Can I say that right at the start
of this I remember seeing the whole raft of examinations of other
NATO allies. We looked at the French, but of course they have
the derogations so that is rather different, the Dutch, the Norwegians,
the Danes and the Germans. We actually looked at them. It was
strange how they dealt with it very differently. In Germany everything
is turned over to civilians. I do not know how they are going
to manage when they have now deployed their army in places like
Kosovo because German civilians have got to deal with it. We obviously
could not follow that. You are right, Mr Hancock, in what you
say about the Dutch because they deploy worldwide like we do,
the Dutch Antilles and elsewhere, and have a very similar system.
We were looking for something that actually allowed us as a deep
water Navy to go abroad in peace and war and to have this system.
We looked at nations that managed that, although the French is
similar but with a derogation, and we looked at the Americans,
the Canadians and the Australians.
Mr Hancock: Thank you very much, I wish
you luck with it.
Chairman
97. The useful document, Explanatory Notes,
page 17, talks in Clause 15 of appointment of Judge Advocates.
In this place people can have very high jobs but rather low designations.
The word "clerk" instantly comes to mind: highly paid,
top of the tree, the word "clerk" does not seem appropriate.
Serjeant at Arms, "serjeant" high power, low rank. In
this Bill we are going into reverse, Judge Advocates. These Judge
Advocates in essence, according to this Bill, are virtually straight
out of university. Lord Renton tried to put forward an amendment
to—
(Mr Spellar) Five years' experience.
98. Lord Renton suggested ten years. Can I ask
why you chose five years? The Baroness said if it was ten years
it would restrict the pool of talent. I do not wish to be ageist
in reverse, but tell me why somebody should be designated "Judge
Advocate" with an advisory role who could have come out of
college just having qualified as a solicitor and five years later
can undertake tasks which one would have thought should be given
to people who have had more than five years' experience as a barrister
or a lawyer?
(Mr Woodhead) The five year period is the period that
applies at the moment for the qualification of Judge Advocates,
there is no change in that. What the Bill is seeking to do is
to define the qualifying period for a judicial officer who has
narrower responsibilities than a Judge Advocate. A judicial officer
essentially has responsibilities comparable to a magistrate in
the civilian system to decide on issues of custody in the circumstances
we were talking about earlier. We would argue that is quite an
onerous qualification period possibly for a judicial officer given
that his responsibilities are confined in that way. It seems sensible
to tie them to the existing qualification for Judge Advocates.
It does not change the law in that respect.
99. I presume you are satisfied that five years
is adequate. From your experience of the system operating, how
many people become Judge Advocates after such a limited period
in their chosen legal profession?
(Mr Woodhead) I would suspect it is very few appointed
as Judge Advocates after such a limited period.
| 
