Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

When we were talking earlier about blasphemy, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, prayed in aid the wisdom of the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights. That wisdom is represented in the Chamber today by myself and the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. I sincerely hope that the noble Lord, Lord West, will also take note of the wisdom of the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights on these particular matters, over which we had very considerable doubts. We doubted whether the power to make violent offender orders is defined with sufficient precision to satisfy the law; we doubted whether violent offender orders met the fairness requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights; and we doubted whether the Bill contained sufficient safeguards to ensure that an individual is not retrospectively punished for an offence committed before the Act came into force. We are unhappy that the violent offender orders lack legal certainty. We notice that Clause 148 provides the court with an entirely open-ended discretion as to the type of prohibitions, restrictions or conditions that it may attach to an order. In our opinion, violent offender orders should provide the requisite degree of legal certainty. The Bill should be amended to provide, at the very least, an indicative list of the types of prohibitions, conditions or restrictions which may be imposed, although we consider that it would be more appropriate and offer greater protection of individual rights if an exhaustive list was provided. We also think that before a violent offender order is imposed—which is, in effect, a criminal sanction—the standards of criminal proof should be applied. Otherwise they provide an ability to double punish someone on suspicion of the way in which they might behave and because someone thinks they might do something wrong. I thought that we had habeas corpus and common law to protect us and that we were supposed not to be convicted except by due process of law. Thinking that someone may or may not be guilty of an offence or is likely to commit another offence of a type for which he has already been punished is not in the best traditions—or any of the traditions—of English law. I hope that we can make the Government think much more than they have about the letter which I received at about 2.30 pm today, although admittedly it was dated 3 March. The Government have come up with a paltry set of amendments which do not address the problems on which some of us have spent a little time in trying to grasp their complexity. This is yet another example of the Government’s cack-handed and high-handed intention to undermine the rule of law and the liberty of the subject. I sincerely hope we make major inroads into this whole process. I would like to see it abolished altogether. I apologise to the Lord Speaker for entering in an absent-minded way and walking about the Chamber while she was addressing your Lordships. I apologise to her.