Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

moved Amendment No. 1: 1: Before Clause 1 , insert the following new Clause— ““Presumption of right to jury trial Subject to the provisions of this Act, the defendant has the right to trial with a jury.”” The noble Lord said: This amendment is based on observations by the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the first of the three significant human rights issues which it has raised in connection with this Bill—that is, the boundary between jury and non-jury trials in Northern Ireland. The Joint Committee acknowledges the need to protect juries against intimidation and thus to provide trial without a jury in cases where there is a risk of jury tampering or perverse verdicts. The question it addresses, which is now for your Lordships to decide, is where precisely the dividing line falls in the context of our commitment to security normalisation in Northern Ireland. Under the new system, which the Bill provides, of non-jury trials replacing the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, the presumption will be for jury trial, subject to the power of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland to issue a certificate that trial is to be conducted without a jury. It is that presumption that we would like to see ahead of the exceptions which confront the reader inClause 1. The Bill plunges straight into the powers exercisable by the DPP if he suspects that any one of a number of conditions is met and is satisfied that, because of this, there is a risk that there might not be a fair trial if it were to be conducted without a jury. Just how exceptional a non-jury trial will be after these provisions come into force, which I understand will be in July, remains to be seen. The police have intelligence of only 11 cases since 1999 in which jury tampering has been reported. Ministers say that there is anecdotal evidence of other cases; they know of one where a trial collapsed as a result of jury tampering. They conclude that intimidation is therefore still a significant problem in Northern Ireland, despite the recent improvements in the security situation, and poses a significant risk to the ability of the criminal justice system to deliver fair trials in certain cases. What is not to be found in the JCHR report is any assessment of the extent to which the Government believe that with the other measures for jury protection and, one hopes, the diminishing influence of the paramilitaries and their criminal associates, the proportion of non-jury trials can be expected also to decline. It would be useful to hear from the Minister about the Government’s prognosis in that regard. To what extent do they believe that the DPP will still need to exercise the powers in Clause 1 following the normalisation of the situation in Northern Ireland, which we hope is about to occur? In any case, from the point of view of this amendment, we need to look to the future, establishing the benchmark we shall attain as a result of the return to normality. Whatever exceptions there may be, which will be agreed in later discussions, the presumption in favour of jury trial is a fundamental component of that normality and needs to be declared on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.