Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

moved Amendment No. 3: 3: Clause 7, page 5, line 27, leave out ““exceptional circumstances”” and insert ““lack of jurisdiction”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is in the name of my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill, with whose permission I move it. We have already dealt with the issues arising on Clause 7 in Grand Committee, so I need summarise them only very briefly. The clause prevents the ordinary courts entertaining challenges to the DPP’s decision under Clause 1 to certify that a trial is to be conducted without a jury. As the Bill stands, the certificate can be questioned only on grounds of dishonesty, bad faith or other exceptional circumstances, and we relied on the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Bill to argue that the Government had misread the Shuker judgment on which the clause was said to be based and that Parliament had consistently set its face against statutory ouster clauses. We had the powerful support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, who cited the observation by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Kerr, in the Shuker case that, "““further grounds of judicial review challenge may be deemed appropriate””." However, he added that it would not be, "““helpful, or even possible, to predict what those grounds might be””.—[Official Report, 19/3/07; col. GC 128.]" The noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General explained that the main reason for the clause was that, in issuing the certificate, the DPP would almost always have relied on sensitive human intelligence which he could not reveal but which would certainly be demanded by the defence if a challenge to the DPP’s decision was allowed. The noble and learned Lord also disputed the JCHR’s reading of the Shuker judgment and drew attention to the quotation, in paragraph 17, by the Lord Chief Justice of a sentence from the judgment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, in the case of Kebilene, where the words ““exceptional circumstance”” were used. That, he told the Grand Committee, was the language that had been picked up for the purpose of this clause. The first of these arguments was already known to the JCHR; it dealt with it explicitly in paragraph 1.34 of the report. The gist of it was recited in Grand Committee, so I do not need to go over it again. The JCHR welcomed the amendments tabled by the Government following the debates in another place, but it pointed out that the High Court of Northern Ireland had taken on board the sensitivity of the information on which the DPP's decision was based and had still rejected it as an argument for ousting the jurisdiction of the court. The Kebilene case was not germane to this debate, because the decision of the DPP there was, not to deny a jury trial, but to consent to criminal proceedings before a jury. Incidentally, the words attributed by the Lord Chief Justice to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, were in fact those ofMr Pannick of counsel. The Lord Chief Justice, followed by the JCHR and the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, left out seven crucial words at the beginning of the quotation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, said that Mr Pannick had contended that, "““there is a common law principle that””—" I emphasise those words— "““absent dishonesty or mala fides or some other wholly exceptional circumstance, the High Court will as a matter of discretion not entertain judicial review proceedings of a decision to prosecute””." I therefore suggest to the noble and learned Lord that it is inappropriate to use those words as a model in this context, reading across from a common law principle applying to a decision to prosecute to a statutory rule applying to a decision to deny jury trial. In any case, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn, specifically disclaimed the application of this principle to the Kebilene case. The paragraph in that judgment, following the one just quoted, begins: "““For my part, I would not wish to base my decision on these observations””." Whether the analogical force of Section 29(3) of the Supreme Court Act 1981, which prohibits an application for judicial review of the decision of the Crown Court judge to refuse to hold a prosecution to be an abuse of process by reason of an alleged breach of the convention, extends to the matter under review, as it did in Kebilene, I would not have the temerity to say, but I would like to hear it argued. No doubt these matters have been covered in the discussions since Grand Committee between my noble friend Lord Lester and the Attorney-General. As I understand it, they were moving towards a compromise under which the clause would be retained but the grounds on which judicial review could be sought would be widened. My noble friend has suggested ““other lack of jurisdiction”” instead of ““other exceptional circumstances””, and we believe that this amendment would bring the clause more into line with accepted judicial principles. It takes full account of the Attorney-General's concerns, which are shared by my noble friends, about the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, where non-jury trials may still be needed for some time to come and it is undesirable to open the reasons for certifying a case to examination because it would compromise the security of human intelligence. I fully understand that the Attorney-General may not have had sufficient time to consider this proposal since it appeared on the Marshalled List, but I hope that he will indicate this afternoon that discussions with my noble friend are still in progress and that he is hopeful that a mutually acceptable form of words can be agreed. I beg to move.