Police and Justice Bill

Like my noble friend Lord Goodhart, I had the privilege of learning much of my law at a great American law school, Harvard Law School, where I studied constitutional and international law. When the Minister visits that nation’s capital, perhaps it might help her if she explained to our American friends—and I am a strong friend of the United States—that what we seek in this short debate is reciprocity in the following sense: that the ““probable cause”” requirement written into the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution be applied both ways, to our citizens and to theirs, so that there is equal constitutional protection for both. Unfortunately, the Court of Appeal has decided that that protection cannot be provided by the Human Rights Act, which has been trumped in this case. We do not have in this country a constitutional bill of rights that covers the point. As has been said, we do not yet have the treaty scrutiny committee that the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, recommended long ago. It might help, and I am sure that it would carry great conviction in the United States, if, armed with the vote from your Lordships' House this evening, that point were made to our American colleagues.