Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

moved Amendment No. 19: 19: Clause 12 , page 10, line 5, at end insert— ““(6) The Crown’s right of stand-by is abolished.”””” The noble Lord said: We have come to the question of equality of opportunity for the defence and the prosecution to conduct juror checks, which is discussed in paragraph 138 and following paragraphs in the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Noble Lords will have noticed that I am following closely on the text of that report and the recommendations made in it. I hope that, as a general principle, noble Lords would pay close attention to what is said in the report and, indeed, in any other report produced by the JCHR; otherwise, what is the point of having the committee? If the committee scrutinises legislation with the benefit of very distinguished legal authorities who are members of that committee and comes forward with recommendations, it would be fatuous to ignore them or not take them seriously. Here is a case where I hope that noble Lords will see that there is a strong argument for Amendment No. 19, which concerns the established principle that parties in legal proceedings must have equality of arms to be able to pursue their respective cases. Clause 12 abolishes the defendant’s right to peremptory challenge. The Government have explained that this should not compromise a defendant’s right to a fair trial because, according to their thinking, the defendant will continue to have the right to challenge any juror for cause. They explain that the reason for abolishing the defendant’s right to peremptory challenge is to limit his ability to pack a jury, thereby reducing the risk of perverse verdicts. I suppose that is based on the assumption that people’s religious beliefs may affect their decisions on a jury. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission agrees that the right of peremptory challenge may compromise justice, but it recommends that, in order to reduce the risk of perverse verdicts, both the defendant’s right to peremptory challenge and the Crown’s right to stand-by ought to be removed. That is why we believe this amendment is necessary in order to ensure compatibility with the principle of ““equality of arms”” implicit in Article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, that no party must be under procedural disadvantage compared with any other party in litigation. The JCHR report refers to the guidelines that the Attorney-General proposes and what the contents of those guidelines should be. When the committee reported, the Government said that the policy in relation to the guidelines on jury checks had not yet been settled, but it was anticipated that they would closely reflect those that already apply in England and Wales, a copy of which they provided to the committee. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether those guidelines are available and whether your Lordships might have a copy of them, either now or at any rate before we come back to this question on Report. I beg to move.