Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I shall speak to the amendment in the names of my noble friend Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, who cannot be here this evening, and myself. From the position of practitioners with hands-on experience of the criminal courts throughout our legal careers, we believe that the existing system works perfectly adequately. I concur with the views that have already been expressed in that way. Few applications are made and, of those that are, most are rejected by the magistrate who is the highly experienced person. Why then is there a need to move away from the current position? We are told that it is because there are people who feel that if they come to this country they may be subject to a private prosecution and to arrest. Those who feel that way in foreign countries simply do not understand the practice and procedure of our courts. It is strange to amend our law not because of a real problem but because there are people abroad who believe that a problem exists when it does not. We are moving from the position that if the Government want to introduce the question of the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, it should be made equally clear at the same time that the tests to be applied are those which would be applied in an ordinary criminal case in this country. No special tests will be needed for those from abroad and who face allegations of offences of universal jurisdiction. We feel that the tests that are to be applied are those of the existing discretions of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I have been approached today by my noble friend Lord Carlile in his usual genial and understated way to point out that the tests applied by the DPP are in fact subject to change. The guidance has changed in some ways. My noble friend tells me that we are now on the seventh version of guidance issued to public prosecutors. If that is the case, it is perfectly simple to redraft on Report the amendment that we have put forward so that we put in a broader way that the same tests which apply to citizens of this country will also apply in the case of people who come to this country. But there is a difference with private prosecutions. Let me say that no practising criminal lawyer has any time for private prosecutions. They generally fail, and generally they cause great harm and trouble to people. We feel that prosecution should be in the hands of people charged with those duties; namely, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Crown Prosecution Service, which acts under the director. The distinction is that the arrest warrant in a private prosecution leads to trial. When the police arrest someone, there is an arrest, and then there is a consideration of evidence that is obtained between arrest and charge. The charge is brought on the advice of the CPS only where there is sufficient evidence for the case to go forward. At that intermediate stage, the charge does not exist in private prosecutions, and therefore the issuing of an arrest warrant leads, as I have said, straight to trial. We believe that safeguards are needed. We start from the basis that there is no need to amend the existing position.