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Mr. Spellar: I reiterate to the hon. Gentleman that the recommendation states that the

"removal of a judge or lay magistrate from office should only be possible on the basis of the finding of a judicial tribunal constituted under statutory authority",

et cetera. Nowhere does the recommendation state that there should be a subsequent veto by the Lord Chief Justice. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the 2002 Act introduced such a veto, but that is not sustained by the criminal justice review. I therefore fully accept the argument that we have changed our mind on this matter, but equally I can refer back to the review in saying that perhaps we were wrong in the first place.

Mr. Trimble: The provision that the Minister is quoting does not assist him at all. In fact, if we look not only at the summary of the conclusions but at the paragraph from which the summary is drawn, we see that that paragraph does not go into the detail of the procedure at all. All that it says is that the removal should be possible only on the basis of the finding of a tribunal. That merely sets the initial basis on which to proceed. The review is entirely silent on the procedure thereafter. As the 2002 Act was enacted, it was entirely consistent with the recommendation, and the Minister has not given any explanation for this change. He cannot rely on this recommendation, because it contains nothing that has any bearing on this point.

Mr. Spellar: I would never accuse my colleagues of having introduced inconsistent legislation. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the recommendation is silent in that regard, but, equally, the recommendations state that

"removal . . . should only be possible on the basis of the finding of a judicial tribunal".

That does not imply that there should then be a veto by another party who would therefore be able to override a tribunal that either a fellow Lord of Appeal or the Lord Chief Justice himself could have participated in or chaired.

Mr. Hunter rose—

Lembit Öpik rose—

Mr. Spellar: I give way first to the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter). I will come back to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik).

6.30 pm

Mr. Hunter: That is very kind of the Minister, but I have forgotten what I was going to say.

Mr. Spellar: I give way to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire.

Lembit Öpik: The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) was going to ask the Minister a question, which is this: if his defence is that no veto is implied, why does
 
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he think that that is a reason to take a power from the Lord Chief Justice? Why does he not equally accept that it is not implied that there should be no veto? It is an extremely weak argument to say that, because it is not necessarily stated that there should be a veto, he should remove the power. If that is what he is saying, is that the strategy that the Government will henceforth adopt for reviews—taking things out that are not explicitly included?

Mr. Spellar: I am interested that the hon. Gentleman has now taken up mind reading, along with asteroid watching, as one of his occupations. We would of course be interested if his skills in mind reading had allowed him to read the mind of the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy), the leader of his party, as to whether he will remain as party leader. We would welcome the hon. Gentleman's contribution on that.

Lembit Öpik: Clearly the gentleman is not for turning. Indeed, after hearing of injustices of the kind that the Minister is putting forward today, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will fight for as long as it takes to get us on to the Treasury Bench and to enable me, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, to right the many wrongs that we are observing this afternoon.

Mr. Spellar: If the hon. Gentleman's leader is going to do that he will have to raise his game, compared with recent performances. We should return to the point, very substantially.

Mr. Mallon: No doubt when the Minister was considering the change that the Government want to make he looked back at precedent, and no doubt he is aware of the precedent in this matter. To narrow things down, over the last 40 years, say, how many instances have there been of a judge being removed for either of the two reasons specified and what method was used?

Mr. Spellar: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which of course reinforces the point that I made earlier: these are circumstances that are almost inconceivable or very unlikely in respect of there being a need to remove a judge. If we had reached those circumstances and had gone through the procedure as outlined by the criminal justice review—

Mr. Mallon: I thank the Minister for giving way. I can well understand that nobody has the information as to how often this has happened, but surely the crucial thing is, if it happened how was it done? Surely that was part of the research that coloured the Government's mind when they were drawing up the original Act and this amendment to it. Can he say how these things were done previously? Only when we know that will we be able quantifiably to assess whether the proposal is an improvement.

Mr. Spellar: Previous provisions have of course required resolutions of the House.

Mr. Trimble: The Minister will want to remember that we are not talking about the removal of a High Court judge, a lord justice of appeal or the Lord Chief Justice.
 
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The procedures for those are different, but tonight we are debating the particular procedure that deals with people holding lesser judicial offices right down through what the Minister claims to be nearly 1,000 minor appointments. While the removal of the Lord Chief Justice, a lord justice or a judge of the High Court is done wholly differently and has arisen only in most exceptional circumstances, I am sure that we could find examples where people have been removed from the minor appointments.

Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con): The Minister's brief says, "Cut your losses and sit down."

Mr. Spellar: Not at all. We have been through a number of these areas, examining the circumstances of the review and also the—

Mr. Mallon: I thank the Minister for giving way, because it is essential that we know what the procedure was before. If we do not, we will have no way of measuring what is proposed against that procedure. I would have thought that, having introduced two criminal justice Acts, the information on how the matter was dealt with previously and through what procedure would be readily to hand.

Mr. Spellar: I hope that I can enlighten my hon. Friend. The current grounds and statutory provisions for removal are as follows. The Lord Chief Justice, every lord justice of appeal and every judge of the High Court hold office during good behaviour, subject, as the right hon. Member for Upper Bann said, to a power of removal by Her Majesty on an address presented to Her Majesty by both Houses of Parliament. That is under the powers of section 13(1) of the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978.

County court judges and resident magistrates may be removed by the Lord Chancellor on grounds of incapacity or misbehaviour under section 105 of the County Courts Act (Northern Ireland) 1959 and section 11 of the Magistrates Courts Act (Northern Ireland) 1964 respectively.

Statutory officers—masters and district judges—hold office during good behaviour and may be removed by the Lord Chancellor on account of misbehaviour or inability to perform the duties of office. That is under sections 71(1) and 71(2) of the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978.

Members of the deputy judiciary may be removed by the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice and following an investigation conducted by a judge nominated by him, on the following grounds: misbehaviour, incapacity and failure to sit, attend training events or observe standards. Those are the procedures.

Mr. Mallon: I am grateful to the Minister for that information. Does he agree that in each of those instances, until now, the people of the north of Ireland have had no say whatever in relation to this part of the legislation? Is not that the type of imbalance that the Bill is trying to redress?

Mr. Spellar: That is partly the case, but of course it is also the case that the changes introduced under the 2002
 
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Act involved more—the people of Northern Ireland and the judicial representatives in Northern Ireland. The real question that is being addressed here between the 2002 Act and clause 5 is how that balance is struck between those various individuals. As I said earlier, there is also a feeling that it is wrong for a single individual to have the right of appointment, or indeed of veto, over a dismissal within the system.

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