Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

moved Amendment No. 10: 10: Clause 1 , page 1, line 16, and insert ““, or (c) is involved in serious organised crime.”” The noble Lord said: In speaking to Amendment No. 10, I shall speak also to my Amendment No. 11 in the group. These are amendments to conditions 1 and 2 in Clause 1; and I immediately concede that Amendment No. 11 is defectively drafted. I further concedethat had I thought to turn the page to contemplate condition 3, I might have tabled an amendment to that, too; but as I am, strictly speaking, moving only Amendment No. 10, I shall concentrate on that and not worry about such minor matters. It is generally accepted or believed that prior to the outbreak of what we call the Troubles there was no serious organised crime in Northern Ireland. After the formation of paramilitary organisations, or as part of that, all of those organisations became involved in what we loosely call racketeering. They had to raise funds to maintain their activities and they then became involved in what we would now call serious organised crime. The ending of the paramilitary campaigns and the dying away of the direct bombing campaigns and assassinations left the racketeering that those organisations were involved in more apparent and there is every reason to believe that the racketeering has increased over the past decade—apparently because the Chancellor of the Exchequer continues to make engaging in it highly profitable in certain circumstances and because the people who were involved in paramilitary activities and terrorism now have more time on their hands. There have been comments that some people are racketeers for five days a week and paramilitaries at the weekends; I often prefer to say that a lot of people involved in paramilitarism are ““privatising”” themselves—in other words, focusing on what might otherwise be regarded as private activity. Therefore, there is a close relationship between paramilitary organisations and organised crime. At Second Reading, I quoted from a report indicating that, depending on how you counted it, about half or three-quarters of those involved in organised crime had paramilitary connections. Clause 1 provides for non-jury trials in most cases involving a connection with or membership of a proscribed organisation. A significant number of serious organised crime activities will fall within the Act, because those involved in organised crime have a background in or a connection with paramilitary organisations. Other groups involved in organised crime do not have such a connection, apparently, and will not fall within the Act. The only measure that they willfall within is the provision in the Criminal JusticeAct 2003 that we discussed earlier. But organised crime in Northern Ireland has grown largely out of the culture of paramilitary organisations; and organised crime, whether it has a connection with those organisations or not, very much bears the stamp of their operating methods—indeed, broadly in terms of the way in which they operate, there really is not a huge difference between serious organised crime and a paramilitary organisation. They rely on the same techniques such as trying to intimidate jurors and witnesses in much the same way. One wonders whether it is right even to draw a distinction between paramilitary groups and those involved in serious organised crime. The same problems arise and the same methodologies are evident. That is why I have tabled this amendment. If we do not have an amendment of this kind, we will be left with the unsatisfactory situation we touched on previously: we will have quite different legal regimes dealing with racketeers depending on whether or not those racketeers happen to have a history of or other connection with a paramilitary organisation. That is not a good thing. As well as being undesirable, there is a matter of principle here. This amendment would extend the operation of the Bill and broaden the range of circumstances in which a non-jury trial could take place, because when considering the circumstances in Northern Ireland, one is dealing with the same activity whether it falls within the Bill as presently drafted or as it would if it were to be extended to Amendment No. 10 and related amendments drafted correctly and tabled to address Conditions 2 and 3. I beg to move.