Coroners and Justice Bill

I want to take a matter that has been referred to by a number of noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lords, Lord Lloyd of Berwick and Lord Mayhew, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. That is the Clegg case. What has been addressed is one component of the public and personal reaction to the situation of a soldier who, by nature of his job, finds himself effectively being convicted of murder. But there is another side to it as well, which also gives support to this elegant and powerfully and persuasively argued amendment. Consider that not everyone in the population pays quite so much attention to the question of murder as is the case in your Lordships’ House, but notices those which are of great importance to them as well as the political stance of the leaders of Governments. In my part of the world, one of the statements that rung through again and again was the Prime Minister speaking of murder being murder being murder. Then we have a situation in which a soldier is convicted of murder. There is no possibility of the jury applying extenuating circumstances. There is a requirement for a mandatory life sentence. But what is seen from an Irish perspective is a Prime Minister saying that murder is murder, a British solider being convicted in a British court of murder, a mandatory life sentence being the appropriate sentence, but "the British establishment" deciding that of course the solider should not serve it. We all know and appreciate that it is wholly appropriate that the solider should not serve it, but that is not necessarily how it is seen in Ireland. However, if an amendment of this kind were part of the law, and the jury, not the judge, was able to identify that there were extenuating—and, in the case of a soldier carrying out his job, more than mere—circumstances, that would send a message to the population that those engaged in the detailed consideration of the problem viewed it not as being merely murder, but murder in a certain and particular circumstance with enormous extenuating circumstances. So, in no way diminishing the arguments about the solider and his family’s plight that have been adduced, but taking into account the requirements and concerns of the public, there is another perspective that simply adds weight and support to the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and others.