Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, in moving Amendment 65, I draw your Lordships’ attention to its being grouped with government Amendments 66A and 135A. In the light of the previous debate, I should perhaps say that that is a result not of infidelity of any kind but of a meeting of minds on this subject. We are dealing now with the extraordinarily important and grave issues of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. At the outset of what I hope will be a fairly brief speech, I wish to express my thanks to those other noble Lords whose names appear on the Marshalled List, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who has been an enormously wise adviser on this matter, and the Aegis Trust, which has done a tremendous amount of work in briefing Members of the House. The headline of the attempt of those of us who wish to amend the law in this regard can be summarised in the three words "no safe haven". Our view is that there should be no safe haven for war criminals, genocidaires and those who commit crimes against humanity in any of the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. No one should be allowed to stand and flaunt their past activities while in the UK without at least running the risk of being prosecuted. We are determined that our competent prosecution authorities should be able to exercise their discretion in the normal way, as with every other criminal offence in relation to such persons who may have committed war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity. Our approach to this difficult issue fell into two headings. One heading was "presence"; we argued that mere presence in the United Kingdom should render people liable to prosecution, as happens in some other countries in the world. We have had enormous co-operation from the Minister, his colleague in the House of Commons and officials in a number of robust—perhaps I may put it that way—meetings, in which there has been a strong exchange of views. That has resulted in what I believe is a satisfactory solution. The Government, however, have approached this from the point of view that only "residence" will do. From those positions, we—those of us favouring presence as the standard—have looked at something that we have been calling "presence minus", or presence qualified, while the Government have looked at something that we have characterised as "residence plus", or residence qualified. In approaching the discussions that have been taking place, we have looked at various possible scenarios involving the de facto presence in this country of people who were guilty, were likely to be guilty or might be guilty of the sort of offences that we have had in mind. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain to the House, in due course, how at least most of our concerns have been met by residence plus, as set out in government Amendment 66A, in particular in its second part, which appears on page 13 of the Marshalled List of amendments. Those of us who share my view have recognised throughout the effect of the law of nations, while there will be some who do not agree that we should recognise that law. We recognise the reality of sovereign immunity. When we recognise Governments, we may like them not one bit. Nevertheless, even if we do not like them we recognise them as Governments. There are many examples of our Government and other Governments negotiating successfully and leading to change in countries whose Governments we dislike very much. That depends, in part at least, on the law of sovereign immunity and in allowing officials, if they come officially to this country, to negotiate—not to be arrested as a result of complaints to the police, thereby frustrating the negotiations. I, at least, believe that the government amendments, especially paragraphs (g) and (h) of subsection (1) of the proposed new section on page 13 of the Marshalled List, will remove a possibility that we cannot accept should be right. We believe that the amendments will remove the realistic possibility of known war criminals, genocidaires and criminals against humanity remaining in the United Kingdom—and I use that neutral "remaining" purposefully—without running the risk of being tried here. Can the Minister confirm that we have understood correctly that it is the Government’s intention that people who remain in this country and whose presence is clearly undesirable—and whose presence the Government have made it clear is undesirable—will run that risk? We recognise, of course, that there is an area of discretion to be exercised here, as there always is in relation to prosecutions. The discretion can be broadly summarised as the exercise of the public interest. In all international law, public and private, there are better and less good forums where trials can most meaningfully take place. I certainly accept that if somebody who should otherwise be tried for a war crime in this country can, realistically, be tried in their country of origin—where the evidence will be more accessible, probably stronger and more easily deployed—they can properly be the subject of an exercise of discretion that they should be tried in their own country. However, if that is not a realistic possibility, I hope that the Minister will confirm that people who fall into the much rehearsed scenarios that have been discussed at various times in relation to this part of the legislation will be capable of being tried here. I say to the Minister that we have compromised, possibly more than we would have wished, and that we do not regard the idea of residence plus—residence with a number of factors defined as residence—as an entirely satisfactory solution. We certainly do not regard it as a perfect solution. However, we understand the legal and jurisdictional difficulties and are grateful for the distance that the Government have come from their original refusal to consider any variation on the word "residence" to the point that we have reached. In summary, those of us who put our names to this amendment and who are now prepared to accept the Government’s amendments believe that we have achieved something important both through the formal debates that have taken place on the Floor of this House and elsewhere and in the discussions that have taken place in the useful way that I have described. My belief is that we can feel a sense of having made a real contribution to better global criminal jurisdiction. I beg to move.