Parliamentary Standards Bill

Anything that I say about this is subject to correction by the noble and learned Baroness the Attorney-General, if she is able to give her views to the House. First, I think that it has been deliberately set up in the Bill that the commissioner and IPSA—I shall call it IPSA for the time being—are outside Parliament. Therefore, proceedings of the commissioner as a commissioner and of IPSA are not covered by the phrase "proceedings in Parliament", which is fundamental to Article IX of the Bill of Rights. Assuming that there is any important action that either the commissioner or IPSA can take, that will be subject to judicial review. As a result of the amendments that have been made, the only positive action which IPSA or the commissioner can take independently of Parliament and which has effect is that IPSA is to make rules about the nature of the procedure to be followed in relation to complaints. So long as these rules have nothing to do with the proceedings in Parliament as a result of the commissioner’s report to the Committee on Standards and Privileges in the House of Commons, they will be outside the protection of Article IX but only in so far as they have a positive effect. As I said, I think that these are the only procedures outside Parliament that will have effect immediately. The other decisions of the commissioner and IPSA are of no effect of themselves, except in relation to the proceedings in Parliament as a result of the commissioner’s or IPSA’s proceedings outside Parliament. There is only one point in relation to this that is possibly worthy of mention and that concerns the procedures relating to publication of the commissioner’s report. If these rules take effect before the commissioner’s report reaches the Committee on Standards and Privileges, then I do not think that they will be protected, and therefore there may be a slight question there. As regards the European law, I do not think that the referral provisions of the European Communities Act, and the treaties that are made law in this country under that Act, have any effect except in relation to proceedings in our courts. The court can have no obligation to refer to the European Court of Justice if the case is won, which our courts cannot hear in any event because it is an obligation arising on the court having jurisdiction. The European Communities law is, I think, unlikely to apply to these procedures, although one can never be sure. Lord Denning said that it would go up the estuaries and all the rest of it, and who knows where it may finish up. But as matters stand at the moment I should have thought that the European Communities legislation does not impinge directly on this. On the other hand, the European Convention on Human Rights—not the Human Rights Act—relates to proceedings that can go to the court in Strasbourg. The court that is referred to in the European Communities legislation is, of course, the Court of Justice of the European Communities, which is in Luxembourg. The European Convention on Human Rights relates to the court in Strasbourg. There is no obligation on our courts to refer anything to the court in Strasbourg; it is a matter for the litigant to take his or her proceedings there if they wish. Therefore, I think these amendments are probably not necessary in the circumstances of this Bill. However, as I say, anything I say about this is in relation to what I understand about these procedures, and that is a very important restriction. However, I thought that it might help if I tried to clarify the matter so far as I can at this stage subject to what the Attorney-General may say at a later stage.