Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill

That is why this is a matter not of principle, but of judgment. The judgment of the Liberal Democrats is that it is appropriate to take the advice on board. I do not condemn the Minister, the hon. Member for Tewkesbury or others for holding a different view, but it is important to put down a marker today on where we should go. Let me return to the question of the affiliation of judges. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury rightly pointed out that there might be some consideration of whether there were one Protestant and one Catholic judge. It was suggested that the third judge could be an Alliance party member, but perhaps one Baha’i could be the third member of the panel. The problem is not insurmountable. We faced it all the time when constituting the various organisations that have been set up in Northern Ireland in recent years and we got through it. If the system were coupled with a requirement for a unanimous verdict, we would ensure that we would get a cross-community verdict from the judges. We must also bear it in mind that Diplock courts have been frequently criticised for requiring one individual to make a judgment on an offence that would be made by a jury in normal circumstances, or in other parts of the United Kingdom, but I shall not labour that point because it has been made several times before. As for the number of judges that we need, I am still not persuaded that we need 10 judges to make the change. I am disappointed that, in responding to a question from the Democratic Unionist party, the Minister could not tell us how many times a Diplock court has been used in the past few years, as such information would be helpful.