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Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill |
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Mr.
C. Shaw, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 18 January 2007[Janet Anderson in the Chair]Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) BillClause 99
am
Lady
Hermon (North Down) (UUP): I beg to move amendment No. 31,
in
clause 9, page 6, line 24, leave
out
‘in the course of
his functions as’
and
insert ‘whilst’.
I am delighted to sit under
your chairmanship this morning, Mrs. Anderson, as we resume
this interesting Committee on the Justice and Security (Northern
Ireland) Bill. Clause 9 deals with restrictions on disclosure of juror
information. It adds an important restriction to the Juries (Northern
Ireland) Order 1996 on the disclosure of juror information that has
come into the possession of various people through, for example, the
electoral office and their work.
Committee members will have
noticed the significant penalty. Proposed new article 26A(8)
says:
“A
person who contravenes paragraph (1) shall be guilty of an offence and
shall be liable”
to a
hefty fine or six months’ imprisonment, or indeed to both. The
penalty for any criminal offence committed in contravention of proposed
new paragraph (1) is severe.
My amendment relates to some
rather curious wording. It pertains to
“a person who is or has been an
electoral officer or a court
official”.
Proposed new
paragraph (2)(b) means that an offence is committed only if the person
who is or has been an electoral officer or a court official obtained
the juror information
“in the course of his functions as
an electoral officer or court official.”
I dislike that wording because it is
ambiguous. It implies that the person was acting appropriately when
they obtained the information.
My amendment represents no
slight on, or criticism of, the staff of either the courts or the
electoral office. It attacks the Bill’s wording, because it
implies that a person in either the electoral office or the court
obtained the information relating to juries in the course of his
functions. It implies that they have obtained it
appropriately.
It is
possible for an electoral officer or a court official to obtain juror
information inadvertently, or of course deliberately, not in the course
of his functions, but in
walking past a desk and appropriating it. I have tabled the amendment to
tease out the Minister’s explanation about why
“in the course of his
functions”
is
set out only in proposed new paragraph (2)(b), and not elsewhere when
it qualifies the other people and the work that they do in obtaining
juror information.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs
(Bridget Prentice):
It is a delight to serve under your
chairmanship, Mrs. Anderson. You are always firm and fair,
although I suspect that the former will be unnecessary because the
Committee has made good progress in a co-operative fashion.
I have thought deeply about the
amendment, and I would very much like to grant the hon. Lady the
opportunity to amend the Bill. I have asked detailed questions about it
because she has scrutinised the legislation assiduously. It would have
been a pleasure to tell her that the amendment was satisfactory. Sadly,
that will not be the case, but I hope that what I say will reassure her
about why the wording is as it
is.
Proposed new
article 26A makes it an offence for certain officials who obtain
information in the course of their employment to disclose any of it
without lawful authority. The amendment would shorten the wording so
that instead of specifically referring to obtaining information by the
electoral officer or court official in the course of their duties, it
would refer to their obtaining it while the person in question was an
electoral officer or court official.
The reason for the restriction
on disclosure of jury information is that we want to give greater
reassurance to people who are called on to serve in the criminal
justice system, and, in turn, to promote greater confidence in it. That
is why we want to make the arrangements as robust and precise as
possible. The provisions have been crafted deliberately to ensure that
the restrictions apply to officials who come into possession of the
information in the course of their duties. That, of course, would be
while they were in their official posts, but the wording in the
amendment is less precise.
Perhaps I can give an example.
An electoral officer who was in court as a defendant would not be there
in the course of his or her duties. Often in England and Wales,
electoral officers have other duties besides their electoral
officer’s duties. It is important to define the provision so
that it relates to what is done in the relevant post, while performing
the relevant duty. Having considered the matter for some time, I think
that the clause gets the right balance and the amendment would not add
anything to the proposed arrangements.
As a final point, the
inadvertent obtaining of information would be specifically dealt with
under data protection legislation; there is already legislation to
cover people who either inadvertently or deliberately obtain the
relevant information by the wrong
means.
Lady
Hermon:
I welcome the Minister’s presence this
morning. She has been in attendance before, but did not have the
opportunity to speak. Will she confirm that the punishment under the
data protection legislation would be equivalent to that set out in the
Bill—that is, a hefty fine, six months’ imprisonment, or
both?
Bridget
Prentice:
I cannot give the hon. Lady the exact sentencing
guidelines for the data protection legislation, but six months, a fine
or both on summary conviction is a pretty standard form of sentencing.
I should be surprised if the sentences available under the data
protection legislation were anything less. However, I shall write to
her if there are significant differences in the sentencing
procedures.
Lady
Hermon:
I am grateful for that explanation, but I am
slightly at sea in responding. I think that I took down the
Minister’s words exactly and that she said that the provisions
had been crafted deliberately and were “as robust as
possible.” My concern is that the wording
“in the course of his
functions”
pertains only,
in clause 9, to an electoral officer or a court official. When the
provisions of proposed new article 26A(4), for example, were crafted
deliberately, and as robustly as possible, in relation
to
“a person...who
is...a member of the police
service”,
the drafting
was altogether different. The provision applies to a member of the
police service,
“who
obtained the juror information for or in connection with the making of
checks, in accordance with jury check
guidelines”.
It is not
similar to the drafting with respect to electoral or court officials,
with its reference to information
obtained
“in the course
of his functions”.
I am
somewhat bemused by the differences in the carefully crafted drafting
of the Bill. The Minister indicated that it is to be “as robust
as possible,” but one would have thought that consistency of
language between the lines of one clause would have helped to make it
more robust and give the appearance that it had been deliberately
crafted to be robust.
Bridget
Prentice:
Let me clarify matters. Other officials are also
included for specific purposes in relation to jury checks. All those
officials are dealt with in specific ways relating to their duties in
respect of checks on juries, so there is
consistency.
Lady
Hermon:
That is extremely helpful, and it is good to have
it on the record. I appreciate the Minister’s point, which
supports the conclusion that I had already reached, which is that I
shall seek the Committee’s permission to withdraw the amendment.
The discussion on the clause has been helpful, and I beg to ask leave
to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause 9 ordered to stand
part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed
to.
Clauses 10
to 12 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 13Legal
proceedings
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Lady
Hermon:
I want to make a few comments on the clause before
we nod it through. We have moved on to an interesting chapter on the
Northern Ireland
Human Rights Commission, and perhaps I can set out some of the
background for the benefit of those Committee members who may not be so
familiar with the various and numerous commissions in Northern Ireland,
whose numbers are growing—we may be a small jurisdiction of 1.7
million people, but we have commissions second to none.
The Human
Rights Commission was one of the early commissions. One of the many
outstanding achievements of the Belfast agreement signed on Good Friday
was that it set in train the establishment of two statutory
bodies—the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the
Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. That would remain an
outstanding achievement even if the agreement were to fall tomorrow,
which it certainly will not; now that the Democratic Unionist party is
prepared to operate the agreement, it has a long and bright future. The
Northern Ireland Act 1998 gave the Human Rights Commission specific
powers and put the provisions of the Belfast agreement—the
international agreement between the Irish and British
Governments—on a statutory
footing.
If we agree to it, clause 13
will significantly extend the powers of the Human Rights Commission,
which is why I should like to draw the Committee’s attention to
it for a few minutes. The present wording allows the commission to
institute or intervene in human rights proceedings where it is not a
victim or a potential victim of an unlawful act and where no award of
damages can be made to it.
I am sorry to be a pedant, but
will the Minister clarify the use of the word “and” in
subsection (2), where we again have a curious construction? Four
conditions must be met:
“(a) the Commission need not be a
victim or potential victim...(b) section 7(3) and (4) of the Human
Rights Act...shall not apply...(c) the Commission may act
only if there is or would be one or more victims of the unlawful act,
and”—
the
conjunction “and” appears only there, at the end of
subsection
(2)(c)—
“no award
of damages may be made to the Commission”.
Will the Minister confirm that human
rights proceedings must be ongoing in Northern Ireland and that the
commission will not be given a free rein? That is not to criticise the
commission—some parties are extremely critical of it, but I am
not. However, clause 49—we will come to it in due
course, but presumably not this morning—extends the powers of
the commission in clauses 13 to 19, beyond Northern Ireland, to
England, Wales and Scotland. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury and other
Members should consider clause 13 and the extent of the powers that the
commission will have in their
constituencies.
9.15
am
I would
appreciate clarification on clause 13 and the intended remit of the
commission, which is regional, unlike the Paris principles of 1991,
which are often quoted in support of extending the commission’s
powers. The principles pertain to national human rights organisations
such as the Irish Human Rights Commission, not to the Northern Ireland
Human Rights Commission, which is regional. So will the Minister
explain the extent of its powers in clause
13?
Mr.
Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): I welcome you to
the Chair, Mrs. Anderson. I had not intended to speak to
clause 13 because I have two amendments to clause 14, although those
could have been tabled under this clause. I am concerned about clause
13(2)(c), which says
that
“the Commission may
act only if there is or would be one or more victims of the unlawful
act”.
To save time in our
discussions on the next clause, I would like the Minister to answer one
brief question: is an unlawful act not better investigated by other
authorities? That is the motivation behind my amendments to the next
clause, but it might be more convenient for him to answer that question
now.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Paul
Goggins):
I, too, welcome you to the Chair,
Mrs. Anderson. I shall respond briefly to the questions put
by the hon. Members for North Down and for Tewkesbury. We are now at an
important stage of the Bill dealing with the Northern Ireland Human
Rights Commission. As always, I applaud the work of the hon. Lady in
looking at the detail of the clauses. I shall look carefully at the
wording, to which she drew the Committee’s attention, to ensure
that it is
appropriate.
The hon.
Lady is right that clause 13 gives power to the commission to institute
legal proceedings provided that there is a victim, even if that is not
the commission itself. Rather than a whole host of individuals pursuing
legal proceedings, the commission could instigate a test case in order
to clarify a point of law instead of relying on individuals to do so.
That mirrors the provisions granted to the Commission for Equality and
Human Rights in Great Britain through the Equality Act 2006. She drew
attention to provisions elsewhere that will bring legislation on the
Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in line with legislation in
Great Britain. As long as there is a victim, the provisions enable the
commission to take on a test
case.
Lady
Hermon:
I am most grateful to the Minister for that short
but precise clarification. Will he confirm that he and his officials
will consider whether it would be helpful—I believe it
would—to include the word “and” between paragraphs
(a), (b) and (c). At the moment, the provision is not clear, and
implies that
“the
Commission need not be a victim or potential victim of the unlawful
act”.
There could be a
test case under its own volition without there being a
victim.
The commission
already has powers—this is where we must be careful—under
the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to assist a victim of alleged
human rights abuse to take legal proceedings and to support them
financially. It would be helpful if the Minister could indicate whether
a budgetary commitment will be given to the commission to institute
proceedings and test cases when it is not the
victim.
Paul
Goggins:
I do not intend to discuss the budgetary
requirements of the commission now. There is a budget and the
commission does its work. The provision gives extra rights to the
commission and I believe the hon. Lady welcomes that. I assure her that
the Committee stage of any Bill usually reveals an “and”
or a “but” or an “if” or a
“maybe” that is in the wrong place or that an additional
“and” may be beneficial. I am happy to consider whether
this is one of those
instances.
Question put
and agreed
to.
Clause 13
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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