Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I am grateful for my hon. Friend's expert knowledge of this issue. Senior district judges are trusted to deal with highly sensitive terrorism and extradition cases. They are very highly thought of—I would like to hear anybody say they are not highly thought of—and their role should not be undermined, but that is precisely what the Government are attempting to do. These judges are known to have thrown out cases against Israeli Defence Ministers Mofaz in 2004 and Barak in 2009, plus several cases against Mugabe. Eight refusals out of 10 means the system is already robust enough to weed out illegitimate cases. Indeed, there is not a single example of the current system failing to filter out cases that are an abuse of process. What is the evidence that the judge acted wrongly in the two cases in question? Does the Crown Prosecution Service have a view? Perhaps we will hear. Some people are, of course, wildly exaggerating the real impact of the current law on them and officials from other countries. We know very well that many people from other countries who are currently in government—Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and perhaps sometimes Defence Ministers—are free from any arrest warrants of this kind and can travel freely. In fact, absolute immunity applies to serving Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and so forth, so I do not know what the problem is. It is a problem of the Government's own invention, and I am sorry my Front-Bench team seems to be going along with them at the moment along with their coalition partner—although the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington might like to indicate whether he has changed his mind again. I think they are misled and we do a disservice to the many people all over the world who have been injured in some way by some of the people who can clearly be identified as war criminals.