Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

My Lords, I am indeed aware of what happens in Diplock courts. It is usual to bring in a second judge to deal with that problem, but, as the noble and learned Lord knows full well, it is the duty of a judge throughout a trial to keep this matter under review. It is extremely difficult to have a second High Court judge on hand all the way through a fraud trial, which might last for many months or even years, to constantly check these issues. Moreover, as the noble and learned Lord is also well aware, we hope that very soon it will be possible to restore trial by jury in Northern Ireland. I do not think that an example taken from terrorist cases in a situation which is extremely special, if not unique, ought to be an argument against the propositions that I am putting forward about the difficulty of trial by a single judge. I am aware that I have taken up a great deal of your Lordships’ time in putting the Opposition's case. In our view, the way forward is to let the various measures that the Government have quite sensibly put in place take their course. We do not know yet what the effect of the Fraud Act will be. As the noble and learned Lord knows, I regret the fact that the Government have retained the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud because there is certainly evidence from the Jubilee Line case that that vastly over-complicates all the issues without, in the words of Mr Wooler, adding anything at all to the type of sentence that would have been imposed had the trial turned out differently. The noble and learned Lord has also drawn our attention to the protocol of the Lord Chief Justice, as he then was—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. This is an extremely helpful and constructive document. Essentially, it would require all the admissibility issues to be dealt with before the jury was impanelled. If properly implemented, that would make an enormous difference to the expedition of trial by jury. Then the noble and learned Lord referred us to the inter-departmental analysis that has been conducted and reminded us it has been out to consultation. We look forward to seeing the results of that. A number of measures are on foot at the moment that may well achieve the result that the noble and learned Lord is looking for; but the issue of jury trial goes beyond the issue of fraud. It is a crucial component of our constitution. It is one of the most important guarantees, together with habeas corpus, of the liberty of the individual. We should be extremely slow and wary of calling it into question let alone abandoning it in one particular form of criminal trial. Of course fraud is difficult to prosecute; but that is no reason why the citizen should be deprived of this fundamental constitutional guarantee which has been with him the centuries. I beg to move. Moved, as an amendment to the Motion thatthe Bill be now read a second time, to leave out““now”” and at end insert ““this day six months””.—(Lord Kingsland.)