Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

I am very grateful. On too many occasions in the Chamber I have been heckled with sedentary interventions, and I am delighted that a member of the Democratic Unionist party has risen to make a proper intervention. As I was saying, I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I read the Bill. The position is very curious. On the one hand, the Government are endeavouring to persuade the Democratic Unionist party and the Ulster Unionist party that things will be so good by 2008 that policing and justice can be devolved. That is the timescale set out in the St Andrews agreement. The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds)—he is not present, but I am sure that someone will bring this to his attention—has said that he does not expect policing and justice to be devolved in his lifetime. Nevertheless, the Government, and the Secretary of State this afternoon, have repeated the deadline, so the Secretary of State must be confident that the Unionist community will itself be confident that republican criminality is over and republican intimidation is over—that there will be no more such activity on the part of mainstream republicans. In other words, we will have no more Northern banks, no more murders like the grisly, awful murder of Robert McCartney. The Government must be assured of that in order to aim for a deadline of 2008 for the devolution of policing and justice. On the other hand, the Government are at the same time looking in the opposite direction. They have got rid of Diplock courts, but they have replaced them with a great and significant extension of non-jury trials. Let us look at what we are being asked to agree to. I should preface my remarks by saying that no criticism whatsoever is intended of the present incumbent of the post of Director of Pubic Prosecutions. If I want to have a row with Alastair Frasier, I shall do so in private. What I have to say is not at all a reflection on the current DPP; instead I am taking a long-term view of what we are being asked to approve. As Members have mentioned, clause 1 states that:"““The Director of Public Prosecutions…may issue a certificate…if—""(a) he suspects that any of the following conditions is met, and""(b) he is satisfied that…there is a risk””" to the administration of justice. So the DPP does not have to have reasonable grounds or even a reasonable suspicion; he just has to suspect that one of four conditions is met and that that will lead to an erosion of the administration of justice. The measure makes no mention of national security. I know that the Minister has valiantly tried to defend the Secretary of State, who I think let slip the term ““national security””, but that is not mentioned. The first condition that is included is that a person is, or has been,"““a member of a proscribed organisation””," or that they are ““an associate”” of a member of such an organisation. The second condition—we must remember that just one of these conditions needs to be met and that they do not all have to be met at the same time—is that"““the offence or any of the offences was committed on behalf of a proscribed organisation””." The third condition is"““that an attempt has been made to prejudice the investigation or prosecution of the offence””" by someone in a proscribed organisation; I am curious about that condition. The fourth condition is that"““the offence or any of the offences was committed… as a result of, in connection with or in response to religious or political hostility of one person or group of persons””." I wish the Minister to address condition 3. I am particularly interested in the fact that under clause 8 the conditions will apply to events that occurred before the Bill reaches the statute book. Does condition 3—where someone connected with a proscribed organisation has attempted to prejudice an investigation—open the way, rightly in my view, for the prosecution by a non-jury trial of those responsible for the murder of Robert McCartney? In that case there was a deliberate and wilful attempt to clear all forensic evidence from the scene of the crime. As the Bill is retrospective—I refer Members to clause 8(3)—and will apply to offences committed before the Bill is enacted, I would like the Minister to confirm for the record that it gives the DPP the complete discretion to put a case before a non-jury trial if he suspects that there has been an attempt to prejudice the investigation or the prosecution of an offence. I would be fascinated to have that confirmed. That is certainly my interpretation of the proposed legislation, and I will raise no criticism if it is correct. However, let me move on to the Diplock courts. In an earlier intervention on the subject I confused the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), although I had better put it on the record that it is very difficult to confuse him. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), and his party colleagues who are not present, made the most dreadful criticism of the Diplock courts. That is appalling, and I wish that they would check the facts. The facts are that, unlike with other courts in Northern Ireland, the judge in the Diplock courts, who sat alone, had to give stated reasons for his conclusion if it led to a conviction, and he often gave stated reasons if he decided to acquit. Of course, technically, ““he”” is right, because there are no female High Court judges—or, indeed, a female Lord Chief Justice; that argument I will have with the Minister on another occasion. The judge in the Diplock courts had to give stated reasons for the conclusions that he came to in every case, and there were unfettered rights of appeal, in that a point of law and a point of fact could be appealed. Therefore, Diplock courts were hugely successful, and if the hon. Member for Foyle and his colleagues care to look at the number of appeals that went to the criminal appeals commission, they will see that they were very few, because the judge was meticulously fair in getting matters correct.