Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

moved Amendment No. 12: 12: Clause 1 , page 2, line 22, and insert— ““( ) In determining whether the conditions in subsection (9)(d) or (e) are fulfilled, the Director of Public Prosecutions must consider whether there is evidence of a significant relationship between A and B.”” The noble Baroness said: I rise to move Amendment No. 12, again in the names of my noble friend Lord Smith and myself. We return to the issue raised in another place and about which we spoke at Second Reading. We believe the term ““associate”” is generally too broad and that it should be tightened. How do we determine whether ““a person”” is ““a friend””, ““a relative”” or ““another person””? These terms are always highly subjective. For instance, two people could be cousins but may not have seen each other since childhood. Should a trial be conducted without a jury in such circumstances? Have the terms ““friend”” or ““relative”” been used in any other legislation in relation to something as serious as permitting a non-jury trial? The issue was raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. It said: "““‘Associate’ for the purposes of the first condition is defined to include a ‘friend’ or a relative, as well as spouses or former spouses, civil partners or former civil partners, and co-habiting partners or former partners. A proscribed organisation is defined to include an organisation which was proscribed at the time of a person’s membership of the organisation. The power to certify is therefore extremely wide. This raises questions of compatibility with the right to freedom of association in Article 11 ECHR, the right to respect for private and family life in Article 8 ECHR, and the right not to be discriminated against in the enjoyment of Convention rights in Article 14 ECHR. We therefore asked the Government for a more detailed justification for applying the power to certify to people who are associates of members or former members of proscribed organisations””." The Government response largely relies on its security assessment. It says that the security assessment that the Government have received is that members of paramilitary groups attempt to intimidate witnesses and jurors in cases where close friends or family members are the defendant in order to secure acquittals, and that former members of paramilitary groups also continue to intimidate their communities and attempt to use this to secure acquittals. The Government also point out that a connection with a member, or former member, of a paramilitary group would not, on its own, be enough to justify a decision for non-jury trial in a case. The DPP would also need to be satisfied of the risk thereby posed to the administration of justice. In the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission’s view, the first condition is extremely problematic. The inclusion of ““friend““, which is very subjective, and ““relative””, which is very open-ended within the meaning of ““associate””, makes the condition extremely broad in scope and so gives the DPP an extremely broad power to prevent a jury trial. The commission also considers that there is a risk of a breach in Article 14 in conjunction with Article 6.1 ECHR, in so far as the Bill makes it possible for a person to be denied a trial by jury on the basis of having been born into a family, one of whose members had at some time broken a particular law. Colleagues in another place sought to remove paragraphs (d) and (e) in their entirety; however, the Minister argued that without these provisions there would be a large gap in the clause. Therefore, we have sought to tighten up the definition of ““friend”” and ““relative”” by ensuring that the DPP must have evidence of a significant relationship between A and B. We are trying to address circumstances whereby second cousins, say, have an extremely close, long-standing friendship which would cause the DPP to suspect that the jury could indeed be at risk from intimidation, and those of first cousins who have never even met each other because of a family rift, therefore making the possibility of jury intimidation minimal. I beg to move.