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Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet Public Bill Committee Debates Coroners and Justice Bill |
Coroners and Justice Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan Sandall, Committee
Clerk † attended the
Committee Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 3 March 2009[Mr. Roger Gale in the Chair](Afternoon)Coroners and Justice Bill4
pm
Clause 42Meaning
of “qualifying
trigger” Amendment
made: 174, in clause 42, page 26, line 5, leave out
‘justified’ and insert
‘justifiable’.—(David
Howarth.) Clause
42, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clauses 43
to 45 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 46Encouraging
or assisting suicide (England and
Wales) Mr.
Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): I beg to move amendment
9, in
clause 46, page 27, line 7, leave
out
‘capable of
encouraging or assisting’
and insert ‘that
encourages or
assists’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: amendment 178, in clause 46, page 27, line 7, leave out
‘or
assisting’. Amendment
179, in
clause 46, page 27, line 9, leave
out ‘or
assist’. Amendment
422, in clause 46, page 27, leave out
lines 11 and
12. Amendment
10, in
clause 46, page 27, line 24, leave
out
‘is capable of
encouraging or assisting’
and insert ‘that
encourages or
assists’. Amendment
180, in
clause 46, page 27, line 25, leave
out ‘or
assisting’. Amendment
423, in clause 46, page 27, leave out
lines 28 to
33. Amendment
181, in
clause 46, page 27, line 28, leave
out ‘or
assisting’. Clause
stand
part. Amendment
12, in
clause 47, page 28, line 6, leave
out
‘capable of
encouraging or assisting’
and insert ‘that
encourages or
assists’. Amendment
424, in clause 47, page 28, leave out
lines 10 and
11. Amendment
13, in
clause 47, page 28, line 23, leave
out
‘is capable of
encouraging or assisting’
and insert
‘encourages or
assists’. Amendment
425, in clause 47, page 28, leave out
lines 27 to
32. Clause
47 stand
part. Clause
48 stand part.
Amendment 14,
in
schedule 10, page 140, line 15, leave
out
‘is capable of
encouraging or assisting’
and insert
‘encourages or
assists’. Amendment
184, in
schedule 10, page 140, line 15, leave
out ‘or
assisting’. Amendment
15, in
schedule 10, page 140, line 34, leave
out
‘is capable of
encouraging or assisting’
and insert
‘encourages or
assists’. Amendment
185, in
schedule 10, page 140, line 35, leave
out ‘or
assisting’. Amendment
186, in
schedule 10, page 140, line 36, leave
out ‘or
assist’. Amendment
16, in
schedule 10, page 142, line 31, leave
out from ‘information’ to end of line 33 and
insert ‘encouraged or
assisted suicide or an attempt at suicide, and was provided with that
intention,
or’. Schedule
10 stand
part.
Mr.
Garnier: Once again, I make my formal complaint that such
a huge issue has been spatchcocked into the Bill. If we are to do the
subject justice, it should be treated in a separate Bill amending, if
necessary, the Suicide Act 1961. However, as I may have said before, we
are where we are, and we have to do the best we can, albeit with a very
unsatisfactory process for dealing with a highly sensitive and legally
complicated subject.
Clause 46
deals with encouraging or assisting suicide in the jurisdiction of
England and Wales, and it is fair to say that clause 47 produces a
similar regime for Northern Ireland. Clause 48 deals with information
society services, the bulk of which are dealt with by schedule
10.
Mr.
Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): On a point of order,
Mr. Gale, your colleague—Mr.
Cook—arranged for the room to be left at 1 o’clock, when
we broke. This is a trivial point—I am not getting at
anyone—but my papers have been moved, and I found them in a
different place. That should not happen, and I hope that it will be
noted, although I have no wish to pursue any individual. I am as near
as certain that I did not move them myself, so somebody must have swept
them up and repositioned them. It is important that that does not
happen again. Forgive me for raising that matter, Mr. Gale,
but I thought it would be more appropriate if I did so immediately,
without disturbing the flow of my hon. and learned Friend’s
argument.
The
Chairman: The authorities will have heard the hon.
Gentleman’s comments, and I am sure that it will not happen
again, but I thank him for drawing the matter to our
attention.
Mr.
Garnier: Amendment 9 is similar to a number of other
amendments in the group. It deals partly with a matter of English, but
also provides the Government with an opportunity to explain with
clarity what they intend to convey by the sections and subsections that
contain the words
“capable of
encouraging or assisting”.
Clause
46(2) provides that the Suicide Act be amended as
follows: “A
person (“D”) commits an offence if...D does an act
capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of
another person, and...D’s act was intended to encourage or
assist suicide or an attempt at
suicide.” It
is clear from the amendment paper that we would substitute
“capable of
encouraging or
assisting” with
“that encourages or assists”, so that it covers a
situation in which D does an act that encourages or assists. It may be
a difference only of emphasis or of style, but I can only assume that
the Government used the
expression “capable
of encouraging or
assisting” for
a reason, although I gather from the evidence sessions that it is not
an unusual form of parliamentary drafting. From memory, I think that it
has appeared in other legislation. I do not know about that, but we
need to know more about what is behind the Government’s
thinking. It is an unhappy expression, when dealing with such matters.
For the criminal law to be clear, we need to make the English language
suitably clear. As the clauses are drafted, there is an absence of
clarity, which makes it difficult to divine precisely what would
constitute the
offence. Amendment
422 would remove proposed new subsection (1A), which states
that
the “person
referred to in subsection
(1)(a)”— someone
who does an act that is capable of encouraging or assisting the
suicide— “need
not be a specific person (or class of persons) known to, or identified
by, D.”
We want simply to tease
out from the Government what they mean by that, or to know at whom the
provision is directed. Sadly, many people are injured or killed by
people they do not know. Many people who commit a criminal act cause
injuries or even death to people they do not know, so it is not
necessary for the individuals to be known to each other or to be
identified by the person committing the criminal act. However, we need
to be clear about the purpose of proposed new subsection
(1A). To whom is it directed and what hole or lacuna in the law is it
intended to
correct? Amendment
10 makes a further encouraging or assisting point. Amendment 423 deals
with a proposed new section in the Suicide Act 1961
headed: “Acts
capable of encouraging or
assisting”. The
provision suffers from the same imprecise language that I identified
earlier. Proposed new section 2A(2)
states: “Where
the facts are such that an act is not capable of encouraging or
assisting suicide or attempted suicide, for the purposes of this Act it
is to be treated as so capable if the act would have been so capable
had the facts been as D believed them to be at the time of the act or
had subsequent events appeared in the manner D believed they would
happen (or
both).” I
can imagine the joy of the judge when summing up such matters to the
jury. The provision is so dense as to be almost incomprehensible. I
assume that the draftsmen of the Bill and the Government are attempting
to make it permissible to prosecute someone for attempting the
impossible. If that is what they are attempting to do, why do they not
say so? The provision is almost
impenetrable. If we are to adjust the law on
encouraging or assisting suicide, it should be done in the clearest
possible
terms. Amendment
425 covers the same point in the clause relating to Northern Ireland.
Amendment 13 is another encouraging or assisting argument, so I shall
not detain the Committee. Amendments 14 and 15 are in exactly that
category as
well. We
are looking at how the clauses fit into the Bill, with their intrinsic
merits or demerits, as well as into the context outside, where a number
of difficult cases have been in the public eye and tested in the
courts. A case that has just left the Court of Appeal, with the Lord
Chief Justice as president, involved a wife appealing from the court
below—I am afraid I cannot remember her name, which is very rude
of me; although it does not matter, if she and her husband will forgive
me—
Mr.
Garnier: Mrs. Purdy originally applied to the
High Court over something that might have led her husband into trouble
with the criminal law under section 2 of the Suicide Act
1961. In essence, she wanted to be a given a free pass so that her
husband could escort her to Switzerland when the time came to take her
own life. She was fearful that he would be prosecuted for encouraging
or assisting her in that potentially criminal
act. The
High Court refused to decide the matter in a vacuum, as a matter of
hypothesis, and the case was appealed. The Lord Chief Justice and his
fellow judges in the Court of Appeal agreed with the High Court. I hope
that I do not misinterpret what I think was the Lord Chief
Justice’s observation, which was not part of what we call the
ratio decidendi—I thought the Minister would enjoy that. He
observed at the end that no matter what the law is, it was unlikely
that the courts would give a custodial sentence if someone was
prosecuted in similar circumstances to Mrs. Purdy and her
husband. What
the Lord Chief Justice said is clearly not binding on a sentencer,
because in cases of that nature a sentencer has to look at the facts of
the case. However, it was an interesting indication of how he was
thinking and it certainly married with what the Director of Public
Prosecutions, Mr. Keir Starma, did in the case of the
youngster aged 21, 22 or 23 who had severe injuries from a rugby
game—
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