Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 154: 154: Clause 151, page 109, line 3, after ““satisfied”” insert ““beyond reasonable doubt”” The noble Earl said: This is another amendment that has been produced by the clever people behind the scenes of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Through it, we are asking to eliminate the present legal uncertainty. With this amendment and the subsequent one, Amendment No. 155, we hope that guilt must be proved beyond all reasonable doubt—a nice old-fashioned, traditional English judicial safeguard—and that the suspect, or the chap who we think will disturb noble Lords’ sleep, will have the right to contest the evidence and say that all those people who have been chatting about him behind his back in the pub are telling lies, because people chatting behind people’s backs in pubs frequently tell lies, or exaggerate or get it wrong. Criminal sanctions should in no circumstances be applied to anyone without a proper trial and without guilt being established beyond all reasonable doubt. That is so deeply embedded in our civilisation and our culture that to do anything else would be to derogate from all our history. In those circumstances, I sincerely hope that the Minister will accept my amendment. As I say that, I am absolutely convinced that he will not. I beg to move.