Coroners and Justice Bill

Amendment 129 is about appeals. Under the Bill’s new appeals system, an interested person appeals against a coroner’s decision, first, to the Chief Coroner. If dissatisfied with the Chief Coroner’s decision, they may then, under Clause 32(8), appeal, on a question of law only, to the Court of Appeal. In practice, this means that they can appeal to the Court of Appeal only if they think that the Chief Coroner has not applied the law correctly when considering the decision made by the senior coroner which is being appealed. The appellant cannot appeal to the Court of Appeal as to the merits of the decision made by the Chief Coroner. A procedure already exists for challenging a decision in these circumstances and that is to bring proceedings for judicial review. The purpose of Amendment 129 is to enable interested persons to appeal to the Court of Appeal on the merits of the decision made by the Chief Coroner when he or she was determining an appeal against a senior coroner’s decision. This would be in addition to appealing the Chief Coroner’s decision on a question of law and may be prompted by a wish to give bereaved people a greater right of appeal. The new system of appeals will radically change and simplify the procedure for bereaved people and other interested persons to appeal against many coroners’ decisions and ensure that any bereaved person who is dissatisfied with a coroner’s decision will receive a fair hearing from the Chief Coroner—who will be a circuit or High Court judge—or one of his deputies. At present, the decisions of coroners can be challenged only by way of judicial review and so the new appeal route is a great improvement on this. We do not believe that it is necessary to widen this even more so as to enable the Court of Appeal to review decisions made by the Chief Coroner unless a question of law is involved. To do so is likely to overburden the Court of Appeal with appeals from interested persons in relation to decisions which have already been reconsidered by the Chief Coroner and where, for the reason I have given above, the appeal stands little prospect of success. There is also the need for finality so that decisions are not being reviewed endlessly. There is only one exception to this process: where, under Schedule 8 to the Bill, a coroner’s investigation is carried out by a High Court judge or retired Court of Appeal judge. If an interested person wishes to appeal their decision, the first appeal will be to the Court of Appeal, under Clause 32, because of the seniority of the judge who carried out the investigation. There may be some circumstances where an interested person has concerns about a coroner’s decision not listed in Clause 32. If this occurs, then, again, the remedy would be judicially to review the decision as at present although the new bespoke appeal system should mean that this rarely happens. Judicial review has not in any way been ruled out. However, we would expect an interested party to appeal to the Chief Coroner before bringing proceedings. As to the possibility of legal aid support for judicial review, I have no reason to believe that it would be handled any differently from any other judicial review. If there is a difference, however, I will write to the noble Baroness. In view of this explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will consider withdrawing her amendment.