Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

moved Amendment No. 1: 1: Clause 1, page 1, line 8, leave out ““suspects”” and insert ““is satisfied”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we had quite a lengthy debate in Committee about who should issue a certificate for a non-jury trial. There was some desire to see judicial involvement in the process, but there was also discussion about whether the Attorney-General might be a more appropriate person than the Director of Public Prosecutions to take such a decision. We decided not to revisit that issue, but we do want to revisit the criteria that the DPP could use for issuing a certificate to conduct a trial without jury. Although we very much welcome the later government amendments on the length of time for which those provisions will be in place, we want to be satisfied that the power of the DPP is not too wide in the mean time. During Committee, concern was expressed that the threshold that the DPP must meet is too low in judging whether to issue a certificate for a non-jury trial. He need merely ““suspect”” that any of the stipulated conditions is met and be ““satisfied”” that there is therefore ““a risk”” that the administration of justice might be impaired. That is a much lower test than that set out in Section 44 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which applies to England and Wales as well as Northern Ireland. The 2003 Act states that there must be evidence of a real and present danger that jury tampering would take place and that the likelihood of such tampering is so substantial as to make it necessary in the interests of justice for the trial to be conducted without a jury. The requirement in the Bill is therefore considerably lower than that in the 2003 Act. We have enormous sympathy with the Government's position. Of course, we do not want to set the bar so high that trials are put at risk. However, as there was concern in Committee, we felt bound to return to the issue to ask the Government one last time whether they are confident that they have set the threshold at the right level. Amendment No. 1 changes the threshold for the first part of the test from ““suspects”” to ““is satisfied””. Concern was expressed in Committee that ““suspects”” was too low a threshold. Amendment No. 2 changes the threshold for the second part of the test from a ““risk”” to the administration of justice to ““that it is reasonable to believe”” that the administration of justice would be impaired by a trial by jury. In Committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, used the phrase ““reasonable forseeability”” as the standard that the DPP should reach before issuing a certificate—that is, that it is reasonably foreseeable that the administration of justice would be impaired. We have tried to build on that suggestion in Amendment No. 2. As I said, we do not want to put trials in Northern Ireland at risk. However, we want clear assurance that the DPP needs to believe that there is a particular degree of certainty in his decisions when issuing certificates for non-jury trials. I beg to move.