2 S.I.
2003/2601: defective drafting
National Crime Squad (Dispensation from Requirement
to Investigate Complaints) Regulations 2003 (S.I. 2003/2601)
2.1 The Committee draws the special attention
of both Houses to these Regulations on the ground that they are
defectively drafted.
2.2 Regulation 3(1) permits the appropriate authority
to request the Police Complaints Authority to grant a dispensation
from the requirement to investigate a complaint concerning the
conduct of a member of the National Crime Squad where it is of
the opinion that paragraph (2) or (3) applies. In the copies provided
to the Committee, paragraph (2) ends ", or".
2.3 The Committee therefore asked the Home Office
whether something had been omitted at the end of paragraph (2)
and, as paragraphs (2) and (3) are also ungrammatical, how they
are intended to read.
2.4 In a memorandum printed at Appendix 2, the Department
states that no text has been omitted at the end of paragraph (2)
and that the paragraphs are intended to read as they appear in
the printed instrument, but it concedes that it might have been
helpful to have included the words "This paragraph applies
where" at the beginning of each of the paragraphs. The Committee
agrees that the inclusion of such a phrase would have improved
the clarity of the provisions (which would have been further improved
by the omission of "that" wherever it appears in both
paragraphs). The Committee notes that in the published version
of the instrument ", or" at the end of paragraph (2)
has been replaced with a full stop.
2.5 The Committee accordingly reports regulation
3(2) and (3) for defective drafting, acknowledged by the Department.
2.6 Regulation 4(1)(d) and paragraph 3(2)(b) of the
Schedule each refer to a complaint having been resolved in accordance
with the provisions of section 83 of the Police Act 1997. The
Department accepts that, given that section 83 requires regulations
to make provision for the handling of complaints, these references
should have been to regulations made under that section.
2.7 The Department also acknowledges that the reference
in regulation 4(1)(d) to regulation 3 of the Police (Complaints)
(Informal Resolution) Regulations 1985 should have been to regulation
5 of that instrument, and that the relevant footnote (which is
entirely misleading) is incorrect.
2.8 The Department undertakes to correct these errors
at the first suitable opportunity, and the Committee accordingly
reports regulation 4(1)(d) and paragraph 3(2)(b) of the Schedule
for defective drafting, acknowledged by the Department.
| 
