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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 614-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE european scrutiny committee
procedural rights in criminal proceedings
Wednesday 26 October 2005 FIONA MACTAGGART MP, MR MARK DE PULFORD and MR KEVAN NORRIS Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 25
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the European Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday 26 October 2005 Members present Mr Jimmy Hood, in the Chair Mr David S Borrow Michael Connarty Rosie Cooper Jim Dobbin Nia Griffith Mr David Hamilton Mr David Heathcoat-Amory Mr Lindsay Hoyle Angus Robertson ________________ Witnesses: Fiona Mactaggart, a Member of the House, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Mr Mark de Pulford, Head of Trial Policy and Procedure Unit, and Mr Kevan Norris, Assistant Legal Adviser, European Law, Home Office, examined. Q1 Chairman: Minister, welcome to the European Scrutiny Committee. I think this is your first visit to our Committee and we are delighted to have you. As part of our brief, we have got a list of your responsibilities and it would appear that you are a very, very busy Minister so we will not be trying to deal with everything within your portfolio of responsibilities, just to go on the draft Council Framework Decision on certain procedural rights of which we gave you notice. Minister, the previous Committee had serious doubts about the scope of this proposal and did not think it should apply to purely internal cases. How far is it the business of the EU to prescribe rules for our own domestic criminal law and procedure? Fiona Mactaggart: I think the previous Committee has a point, that this is a Framework Decision that we do not think needs to bite too heavily. What we are trying to do is create a structure where the procedures guarantee that people can have equality of procedural treatment in court cases across the different jurisdictions. The question that you asked specifically is whether it needs to bite on cases which are purely domestic, if I have understood properly. Our difficulty there is the question of a sort of two-tier system, that, first of all, there is a difficulty in knowing always whether a case is going to have an international dimension. Something which can look like a purely domestic case can develop international dimensions as it continues and clearly one would not want to suddenly click in and click out of it. Secondly, if the Framework Convention does what we feel is all that is needed, which is to ensure that, in practice, the rights which exist under the European Convention are properly administered by jurisdiction, then it is no burden for us to have it in relation to domestic cases. We believe we fulfil them anyway. Q2 Chairman: The question is where does one draw the line for EU involvement in criminal law and procedure? Fiona Mactaggart: I think it is very clear that it is the UK's view that there is not a free-standing competence under the European Union to deal with matters of criminal law. What this is about is derived from the European Convention on Human Rights, to which, of course, all EU Member States are signatories, and it is trying to ensure, and that is what we have been assured by the Commission, that those rights are delivered effectively throughout the Union. Q3 Angus Robertson: Your ministerial responsibility is for the English criminal justice system, but when you sit in the chair for the UK you also have responsibility for other jurisdictions. My interest in this question is from the Scots legal perspective, and I am sure you must be very well versed on the particular concerns that may exist within the Scottish Executive. Could you outline perhaps the particular aspects of this proposal as it relates to Scots law and what you will be doing to represent the interests of the Scottish Executive on these questions? Fiona Mactaggart: As I have set out, we feel that the laws and practices in the UK generally that we have in relation to suspects' rights and legal aid, and so on, are of a high standard, are fully in accordance with the ECHR and we do not think that we need generally to legislate. However, as you have highlighted, there are issues about some differences between UK law generally and the laws that protect us. Specifically, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act does not apply to Scotland and there are some provisions in the present text which may pose a problem for Scotland, which relate in particular to the right to legal advice before questioning by the police. At present, in Scotland, the police have the power to detain a person for questioning for up to six hours where they suspect that a person has committed a crime punishable by imprisonment, and that person is not entitled under Scots law to legal advice before being questioned by the police or to have a solicitor present during that questioning. His rights under the law are to have a solicitor and another person informed of his detention, and in some ways that right to be informed falls with the 'informing a third party' provision in the format. At the moment, as you are aware, the role of the UK Government is in the Presidency and in that role what we are seeking to do is find a basis of consensus, but at the same time we also have a responsibility to ensure that the interests of all of the UK, which includes Scotland, with its particular legal issues, are properly represented, and we will continue to do that in the discussions which are continuing. Q4 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: The draft instrument contains no restriction to cross-border or international cases, instead it purports to regulate criminal proceedings regardless, whether they are international or national. The legal base is Article 31, which quite clearly only permits EU action that is necessary to improve co‑operation between Member States, so there is a clear case here of exceeding the Articles in the Treaty. I am very worried when you say that this does not matter and in any case it is difficult to draw a distinction between cross-border and national cases. Surely it is up to the Government rigorously to police the legal base and the principle of subsidiarity? Fiona Mactaggart: Let us start with the legal base. As I understand it, the legal base runs in this way, that Article 31(1)(a) of the Treaty of the European Union provides for facilitating and accelerating judicial co‑operation in relation to the enforcement of decisions. It is that Article which has been used for the mutual recognition measures, for the cornerstone of judicial co‑operation. To improve mutual recognition it is necessary to build trust, to ensure mutual trust between Member States as regards the standards of their judicial systems, otherwise Member States will be reluctant to enforce each other's judicial decisions and mutual recognition will not work. That is the conceptual foundation. That argument continues, that in order to ensure there is sufficient mutual trust for these purposes it is necessary to ensure general compatibility in the rules - I will go into what it should not be - in Member States concerning minimum procedural rights of individuals in criminal proceedings which could give rise to mutual recognition requests. Thinking that all criminal proceedings might give rise to mutual recognition requests, it is necessary to establish minimum rights of individuals, establish if they are applicable in all criminal proceedings. Article 31(1)(c) provides a legal basis for ensuring the compatibility of the rules applicable in Member States, where necessary, to improve judicial co‑operation, including mutual recognition, and thus provides the legal base for this proposal. Q5 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: If I can interrupt you there, this is an incredible doctrine. You are saying that it is necessary to regulate all national criminal procedures just in case one of them, in the future, happens to involve a cross-border or international case involving another Member State, so there is no safeguard at all against the regulation of all of our national laws. This is an amazing extension of EU law, simply because you cannot draw a workable distinction. Do you not think it is up to Parliament to regulate national criminal procedures rather than being done by Community instrument? Fiona Mactaggart: I think absolutely it is up to Parliament to determine our national criminal procedures. When it comes to these mutual recognition questions you have to proceed on both a principled and a pragmatic basis, so we need criteria which say can it be justified on the basis of existing treaties, and I have described how it can be, and, very importantly, in this specific will it benefit the United Kingdom and its citizens and Europe as a whole. We regard mutual recognition as the cornerstone of judicial co‑operation. We know that we will not get judicial co‑operation in international law, which is absolutely critical, in issues where UK citizens are engaged in criminal proceedings overseas, like trafficking, and so on. We think that judicial mutual recognition is critical to making that work successfully and that common minimum standards should be introduced only where there is a clear and specific need and a demonstrable benefit for judicial co‑operation can be secured. That is the way we have all approached this and we do not wish to encourage a kind of unfettered growth of competence; that is not the direction in which we are interested in travelling. What we are interested in doing is getting the best deal for our citizens, enhancing mutual judicial willingness to co‑operate by ensuring minimum standards for things like interpretation which have been an issue for UK citizens overseas, access to legal advice. We are not at all interested in regulating criminal procedure, which is at that cornerstone. We do not have a written constitution but there are very many aspects of our criminal procedure which are very different from that of other European Union countries, which are, in effect, part of our national identity, our way of doing things, our constitution, as it were, even though it is not written down. Q6 Angus Robertson: It is public knowledge that Ireland has opposed the approach set out in the Commission's Green Paper on grounds of subsidiarity and lack of legal base, and that is something that in the Committee we have agreed with too. Could you let us know how many other Member States take a similar view in the Council? Fiona Mactaggart: I have not got a list of all of them immediately to hand. I do not know if one of my colleagues can provide it. Perhaps, Mark, you could provide the Committee with that information. Mr de Pulford: We understand that there are six countries in all which have entered a formal reservation about legal base. For the convenience of the Committee, we can attempt to recall them: Ireland, Malta, Slovakia, Austria, the Czech Republic and Denmark. Chairman: Well done. Q7 Angus Robertson: Would it be reasonable to say that there are other Member States which might be reasonably sympathetic to that view, although they have not declared their position in the same way as the countries which have been outlined? Fiona Mactaggart: Yes, there are some, but it is for them to decide whether they would wish to enter a reservation of the kind that the six countries which Mr de Pulford has described have done. Q8 Angus Robertson: What I am trying to get to is, is it reasonable, looking at this list and being aware that there may be other countries which would be sympathetic to that view, that it might be stopped in its tracks and is that something of which the UK would be supportive? Fiona Mactaggart: We hold the Presidency and our job in the context of the Presidency is to ensure that where there is consensus, where there is the ability to go forward that we should, and I think any temptation that you might be offering me to go down that road would not accord with the responsibilities that we hold, as the Presidency. Q9 Mr Borrow: Perhaps I can explore in a little detail that very point, Minister. I assume, within the group of countries in the EU, the group you have just mentioned, which have the strongest reservations about following this path there will be other countries which would like to see this path followed in a deeper and fuller and more far-reaching way. Putting aside the UK's position with its Presidency of the EU, the UK must have some idea of where it would place itself between those two extremes. Would it be nearer to those which have got reservations or nearer to those which would want to see a thorough and far-reaching implementation of this approach? Fiona Mactaggart: We think that, in principle, a Framework Decision in this area could meet the fundamental view, which is to recognise the distinctive legal traditions that I have referred to but I think are very important in the UK, and actually all Member States have this view but, as you would expect, I feel very strongly about ours. Also, we do not want any more than is required for judicial co‑operation. It is getting that, a kind of point of the devil being in the detail. There is the prospect of enhanced confidence between Member States about the minimum safeguards for a fair trial and it has been judicial co‑operation and ensuring that is the theme running through the work which has gone from the Dutch Presidency, The Hague Programme. We would want all our citizens, and I think this is true of every Member State, who get into trouble in another Member State, whether it is Greece or Slovenia or The Netherlands or France, to be as sure of a lawyer and a translation as nationals in those States as they may be in their own country. That is something we all share, even the most sceptical actually want that, if they can find a way of achieving it. We must guard against the danger, and I think this is what Members' questions are heading towards, of trying to create an overlapping or conflicting jurisdiction with the ECHR, we do not want that, there are many members who also very strongly do not want that. I think it is a quite widely-held view. This Convention comes under the Council of Europe, totally separate from the European Union, and that Convention requires common minimum standards regarding legal aid, interpreters, and so on. When the Commission put forward this Framework Decision it did it on the basis that it was about clarifying and articulating those existing rights under the ECHR, an instrument of the Council of Europe, not the Union. Some of the scepticism has come from, and it can be shared by us, that within the current text there are some provisions which are not in the ECHR at all and some provisions which go beyond it and some provisions which actually seem to fall below it, in terms of people's rights. On the clarification and articulation front, we have not really got to the point that we need to get to. On the ladder, as it were, of people who want something which is absolutely clear and articulated there are some people that want it. On the ladder of people who think "What business is this of the Commission?" there are, as we know, six people who have entered reservations and some others who are in that direction. There is a spectrum, as I think these things always are. We cannot get it sorted out until we have concluded the discussions. I have tried to share with you our view that we should not do more than is needed to make sure that a UK citizen has and can enjoy fully the rights which are set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. We have incorporated that Convention into domestic law, it is a very important one, and if we could use this to ensure that our citizens when they are overseas have got those rights it would be something which could genuinely help our citizens. However, if it ensures that anyone who goes into a police station would have to have a long EU Letter of Rights, with a lot of bureaucracy attached to it, I am not sure it would be something which would be likely to be wished for. Currently we are at the point of saying, as I think I said earlier, that the devil is in the detail. Q10 Chairman: Minister, you said that the number of Member States you agreed with was six? Fiona Mactaggart: Which had entered reservations. Q11 Chairman: Is that a number which is growing, because in evidence in January to a House of Lords of Committee Roderick Macauley, giving evidence, said there were two, in January, and now there are six, so has it peaked at six or is it growing? What is the situation now? Mr de Pulford: I think there may be some misunderstanding. I think the number has always been six. Six reservations were entered originally, as I understand it, and none have been withdrawn. I think there may have been a period in the negotiations when it appeared that a number of States were prepared to negotiate more positively perhaps than had appeared to be the case at the beginning. I suspect that my colleague had that in mind when he said that the number, in practice, was lower than the theoretical number, but it is and always has been six, as far as I understand the situation, Chairman. Chairman: Thank you. Q12 Jim Dobbin: Minister, just before I continue the line of argument you have taken in response to Mr Borrow, considering the European Court of Human Rights and its relationship with the need for the Framework Decision, what the European Court of Human Rights provides already is a well-understood catalogue of rights for defendants in criminal proceedings. Can you expand on your response and tell us what additional advantages are achieved by the Framework Decision? Is there a real need for it? Fiona Mactaggart: The Framework Decision is not to provide additional rights, it would be quite improper for it to seek to do so, it is about the procedures which are used to ensure that people achieve the rights which exist within the Convention. I think that is quite an important thing to understand. This is not a granting of rights, it is to ensure that the processes through which criminal cases are developed within Member States work in such a way for those rights to be delivered in practice. For example, if you are arrested in another State and do not have access to interpretation, that must compromise your right to a fair trial. The human rights which are established within the Convention ought to be fully complied with across the EU. We do not think that the Union needs to reinvent the wheel, but I think there is every reason to promote compliance, to ensure that these things work in practice and that is what the Commission said that this Framework Decision was in order to seek to achieve. The aim is not to give you any new rights, it is to make sure that the rights which are set out in the Convention work properly in practice and we want simply to make sure that no more and no less than that happens. Q13 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You say the instrument does not grant rights, but every Article that I have read does do exactly that. You have got rights guaranteed in the European Convention and you have got rights guaranteed here, so you have got two different courts, one at Strasbourg and one at Luxembourg, interpreting two different texts and possibly in different ways. Are you particularly worried about the Pupino judgment, which gives the European Court of Justice an apparent right to go into Member States law in interpreting the Framework Decision, which we always understood was nothing to do with the European Court, it had to be transposed by national law? Given the Pupino judgment, plus the fact that these rights are not identical and will be judged one in Strasbourg and one in Luxembourg, are we not in for almighty confusion? Fiona Mactaggart: The first thing to say is that, in the Working Group, the discussions are making reference increasingly frequently to European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, and I think that is a welcome development, and the recent amendments to the text increasingly reflect that jurisprudence. That is a good direction of travel. There is still some way to go. The point that you raise about the Pupino case is an important one. I imagine that members of the Committee know that it was an Italian case about the standing of victims in criminal proceedings which were in relation to corporal punishment. The Italian prosecutor sought to have special arrangements made for the taking of evidence from children during the preliminary stages of the criminal proceedings rather than at the main trial, rather as we seek to do to protect vulnerable and child witnesses on some occasions in UK law. This is not a procedure which is provided for under Italian law and it was referred to the European Court of Justice for it to decide whether the relevant Italian legislation had to be interpreted, as far as possible, to give effect to the Framework Decision. It decided that the Italian court was required to interpret Italian legislation, as far as is possible, to comply with the Decision. These Framework Decisions do not have a direct effect, they can work only if this was to legislate to transpose them. There are no infraction procedures under the third pillar and the UK could not be taken to the European Court of Justice if the Commission considered that we had not adequately transposed the Framework Decision. However, the assumption must be made that if we sign up to the eventual wording of the Decision we will give effect to its provisions. I do not know, Mr Norris, if you want to add anything about the legal procedure, because the point really is about jurisprudence here. Mr Norris: The Pupino judgment, as the Minister was saying, really is saying that there is a requirement, insofar as is possible, to interpret your national legislation in accordance with a Framework Decision to which you have signed up. As the Minister said also, this issue never really arises if you have already implemented that decision anyway, and of course when you sign up to a Framework Decision one would expect all Member States to implement it. Nor does it require the national courts in Member States to rewrite their legislation to bring it into line with a Framework Decision if that is not possible. It is a rule of interpretation and I think the fundamental differences between the first pillar, the Community legislation, and the third pillar remain, essentially, that there is no direct effect and these measures have to generate rights in UK law and have to be transposed by national law. Q14 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I am sorry, but my point is that you have got here an element of direct effect, therefore, by the European Court, which goes beyond what was in the Treaty. My question to the Minister was, if you are going to have divergence, if you are going to have the European Court interpreting Framework Decisions about these procedural rights, on the one hand, and then you have got the separate European Court of Justice in Strasbourg interpreting it in a different way, we want clarity and certainty about the law, and here we are going to get just confusion and you have not got an answer? Mr Norris: I think if the point came before the European Court of Justice then certainly it would have regard to the Strasbourg jurisprudence, so I think the European Court of Justice would be very conscious of not creating a divergent set of jurisprudence between the two judicial systems. Q15 Michael Connarty: The one thing which is not in the European Court of Human Rights which is in this country and was in the proposals was the proposal to video or tape interviews in criminal proceedings. I hope the Minister will agree, that was a great advance in British procedure and brought a great deal of security and support to people who are interested in criminal proceedings in this country. The Lords Committee recommended that all interviews should be recorded rather than just those in the proposal, which were those under interpretation or where the person who had been interviewed was in need of special assistance in some way, but it has disappeared from the proposal. The one good thing which came out of it, which was not already contained in what we would have got from the European Court of Human Rights, had disappeared. How did that come about and why did the UK agree to it? Fiona Mactaggart: The UK has advanced the argument, which the Honourable Member has just made very fluently, on several occasions before the commencement of our Presidency but we found no support from other Member States. In those circumstances, when your voice is a lone one, you cannot achieve the aim that you are going for. While I concur completely with the Hon Gentleman, we were not able to secure any support for this procedure within the discussions. Q16 Mr Hoyle: It is interesting, is it not, that we think, and quite rightly, as the Honourable Member has said, that there is good reason why you video and record. Is there a danger that, if the rest of Europe does not accept our view and our vision, somebody could appeal on human rights grounds that it should not be recorded? Could it be used against us, that somebody could actually say their human rights had been infringed because the rest of Europe does not accept the whole argument? Are you absolutely sure that no‑one could bring a test case? Fiona Mactaggart: I am completely certain that could not happen. Q17 Mr Borrow: Just following on from the point, I understand why, given the axis of support, it was very difficult for the UK to press for a similar system in the rest of Europe to what we have got here. To what extent is that to do with different judicial systems, or a different cultural system? Fiona Mactaggart: That is one reason for resistance by other Member States to the proposal. I think the other reason is the expense of doing so. I cannot allocate what was the decision which led to it. I think that, having made the case, unsuccessfully on this occasion, it is possible that we can encourage other people to see that it can be done successfully, but they are not yet at a point where they feel comfortable with putting it into a treaty agreement which establishes the procedural arrangements for dealing with these things, which is, it is supposed to suggest minimum standards. As most Member States are nowhere near our widespread use of these kinds of recording mechanisms, I think they felt that not only were there principle and procedural issues but also there were issues in relation to their capacity to do it that were significant. Q18 Mr Borrow: The fact that we went through very specific issues 20-odd years ago, which led the UK to be in a system which was not in place before, means that, in a way, we are a long way ahead? Fiona Mactaggart: We are a long way ahead of other European Union States. Q19 Michael Connarty: You had there what seemed like an early capitulation, you had not reached the beach before you had thrown down your arms. It leads me back more and more to what we have in this framework document that we do not have through the European Court of Rights and why are we doing this? It seems to me that we are giving more power to Europe when we are getting nothing out of it. It is an odd way to play the game? Fiona Mactaggart: We do not want to have any more out of it than we have out of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is not in order to make new rights, it is merely to establish equivalent procedures in all the European Union's jurisdictions. We said that our aim is not to change completely the citizens' rights but, first of all, to enhance judicial co‑operation, which means that on those transnational crimes, which are more common nowadays, we can actually get more successful prosecutions. That is the first thing. The second thing is to make sure that our citizens have rights overseas, rights, for example, to interpretation, and there have been cases where they have not had those rights and therefore they cannot get justice. These things are both very worth having. Making tape-recording and video-recording a more widespread practice would also have been worth having but was not the fundamental purpose of the Treaty, which is to enhance judicial co‑operation, and we know that judges do not require this in order to trust the way that another court proceeds, and to make sure that there are minimum standards, particularly for things which we know are being denied to people overseas, which include interpretation. Q20 Mr Hamilton: Chairman, before I ask the question, just to clarify that point. When we talk about UK legislation we are talking about English legislation. We are not talking about Scots legislation, which does not have that right, because you do not have the right to have somebody with you, you do not have the right for the first six hours, you indicated that right at the beginning. It is not the UK, it is England and Wales, and Scotland does not have that right at the present time so we want to expand it and that is going to improve things in Scotland also. The question I have is in relation to the Commission's role and the proposal which envisaged a role for the Commission in preparing and translating the Letter of Rights. You stated that this may impinge on the principle of subsidiarity. Would you like to expand on that, please? Fiona Mactaggart: It does not seem to me to be the business of the Commission to tell us what we should hand people in police stations, actually. While it might be perfectly proper to ensure that people know what the case against them is, and so on, the way in which that is done, the kind of language that is used, seems to me to be a perfectly proper thing for a Member State to decide. The Commission may say that people need to have access to it in their own language, or whatever, and that is perfectly proper, but I think that the precise wording of such a document ought not to be decided on a kind of standard basis across Europe, I think it is not appropriate. Q21 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Can I ask you, Minister, about the role of the Commission in all of this, in particular the Letter of Rights which has to be given to the accused in all the Community languages, of which I think there are 21 now. I understood the Framework Decisions to be intergovernmental. Indeed, Article 34, the Treaty of the European Union, which I have here, does not mention the role of the Commission at all, so it is surprising to me to find, in this draft Framework Decision, considerable involvement for the Commission, in particular over the Letter of Rights, and in Article 15, an evaluation and monitoring exercise has to be carried out under the supervision of the European Commission. Are you again at all worried about the sort of creeping involvement of a Community institution which defies the Treaties to which we all signed up all those years ago? Fiona Mactaggart: We are in negotiations and we do not intend to sign up to something which does defy the Treaty. I have made it pretty clear, I think, in my response to the earlier question, that the present proposals on the Letter of Rights are not ones which command any enthusiasm from the United Kingdom. This Article and the ones which follow it have not yet been discussed in detail in the Working Group. We have very serious reservations about the proposal for this separate Letter of EU Rights; we do not think it is necessary, we do not think it adds value, it could cause confusion, it could cause cost and I share the Honourable Gentleman's view that it is not appropriate. I said earlier that the devil in this thing is in the detail. Just as the Article that we did feel enthusiastic about, in relation to recording of interviews, has been deleted, it seems to me that this kind of provision might be something which should quite properly be deleted because it is not genuinely required to enhance judicial co‑operation, it is properly something which is in the competence of a Member State. The Treaty of the European Union requires that any measure introduced in this area of criminal law, and so on, must be light touch, so a Framework Decision is possible but there is no authority for a Directive or directly-enforceable European law. It also requires that we have unanimity, we must proceed intergovernmentally and this kind of Letter of Rights is not something which would secure support from the UK Government. Q22 Michael Connarty: It does seem that what is being attempted here is to force together a number of systems. The systems which definitely have independence in Scotland, for example, will have to be taken into account. The big difference seems to be between the inquisitorial system, as in France, and the adversarial system in the UK. That seems to be almost a barrier to ever having a common set of procedures. Apart from in the general sense, how do we reach specific agreement, if one system does not fit into another? It does seem to me, when you said that no‑one was very keen on the idea of having recorded interviews, that in the inquisitorial system, where the prosecutor is deeply involved in the investigation, it might be that it would reveal certain errors in their procedures, in turn just caused by an inquisitorial system, and that is why they are resistant to it. That is just one element which makes me think that is why they would be resistant to it. In general, it seems just too difficult to put these systems together. The bottom line would be, what do we lose out of this, because it always seems to be that when the Commission get involved in something the process of dilution seems to offend against some of the basic tenets of what I think is the best in the British judicial system. I just worry that it will be a case of trying to diminish the quality of our justice and make it more like a bland European model, suiting the French and others. Fiona Mactaggart: We will not sign up to something which does that. Q23 Michael Connarty: It would mean giving up an advance made 20 years ago? Fiona Mactaggart: Both the inquisitorial, mainland European systems and our system, which is on a very different basis, operate under the European Human Rights Convention, actually, and that does not create impossible clashes. It was one of the first questions I asked when I was asking for briefing about this Framework, because I have held this long list of responsibilities that Mr Hood referred to only since June and so getting my head around it has been an important thing to try to do. It does not seem that the fundamental problems have arisen from the different ways of going about things and we do manage to get effective judicial co‑operation and it is in the interests of our citizens to do that, as long as it does not challenge the fundamental qualities of our system. You may be right, that one of the reasons why some of the other EU countries may have chosen to oppose the proposal about recording of interviews was because of the way that they conduct their system, you might be right about that. The fact that people do not wish to include a particular procedure does not mean that the fundamental aim, which is all we are trying to do, it is quite a narrow aim, of getting mutual recognition, mutual confidence between the judicial systems of the European Union in order to get citizens having better access to justice, in order to make sure that our citizens when they are in another EU country can get justice, is made a problem. What we are not trying to do is create a kind of Euro court, which is one of the reasons why the UK is not at all interested in this kind of standard letter. While we think it is quite proper for someone who is accused of a crime to be informed about what crime they are accused of, in a language that they understand, and so on, we do not think that somehow we should have a kind of European charge sheet, and that would not be proper. We are not trying to get standardisation, that is not what this is about. It is about trying to create mutual confidence that basic standards, of understanding what is going on, of access to interpretation, of access to representation, are in place. They are quite minimal, they are quite narrow, but if we have them in place we will get better judicial co‑operation and it will mean that our citizens are safer. That is all we are trying to do. Q24 Chairman: Minister, you have referred to some of the frustrations and slow pace maybe of this instrument. According to The Hague Programme, it has to be agreed by December. Do you think that is optimistic? Fiona Mactaggart: Yes. Q25 Chairman: Do you think it is realistic, if it is optimistic? Fiona Mactaggart: I think it is optimistic, but I will hand over to Mr de Pulford to tell you precisely why. Mr de Pulford: I am not sure that it would be appropriate to comment in great detail on the negotiations, given that they are ongoing and we have the Presidency. If I may say, the Working Group has one more meeting, as I understand it, before December, and it was in The Hague Programme that the dossier should be finalised in December. Also I think it is clear that we are far from agreement on it, so I think I would agree it is most unlikely the dossier can be finalised according to that target. In the event that it is not, it would fall to Austria to pick up a baton, were there to be a baton to pick up. Chairman: Maybe that is something we can discuss when we meet our Austrian colleagues when we visit there in December. Minister, thank you and your colleagues for coming along this afternoon. It has been very interesting and we really appreciate your candour and your forthrightness in answering our questions. It is a very controversial area, as we all know, but this evidence session, hopefully, will have added to the good sense of the debate that lies ahead of us. Thank you very much, Minister. |