I have taken a number of interventions, and I will make some progress now. Otherwise we will be going round in circles on the same point.
The Bill provides for judicial functions to be delegated to authorised staff across the criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals. However, it also states that while those staff will be independent of the Lord Chancellor when carrying out the delegated functions, they will remain court staff, and will not take the judicial oath of independence. It is surely important for those who will be making any type of judicial decision to take that oath. They cannot be described as independent when they are employed by the court in which they will serve.
There might, for example, be economic pressures. The court might want to get rid of cases very quickly, within a certain period. The promotion prospects of those who are employed directly by the courts will, of course, be affected, and, unlike judges, they will not be governed by the oath of independence, the Bar rules and the Law Society rules. People who are making judicial decisions should be appropriately qualified, with the proper ethos and the proper rules that apply to solicitors and barristers, and to which members of the legal profession, such as me, must have regard.
Our amendment 5 would ensure that a party to any decision made by an authorised person exercising a relevant judicial function, or the function of a tribunal,
“may apply in writing, within 14 days of the service of the order, to have the decision reconsidered by a judge of the relevant court within 14 days from the date of application.”
We will be quite happy if the Government want to increase the period to 21 days, or reduce it to fewer than 14, but we want people to have a right to judicial reconsideration of a decision made by an authorised person. We cannot understand why the Government do not want to accept the amendment.
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The statutory right of reconsideration would allow any party to a decision made by an authorised person to have that decision reconsidered by a judge, as recommended by Lord Justice Briggs in his 2016 “Civil Courts Structure Review: Final Report”. The right is already provided for in, for example, tribunal procedure rules. Lord Justice Briggs said:
“The creation of an extensive right to have the decisions of Case Officers considered by a judge has from the outset been regarded as the natural safety valve for concerns about what was...described as the delegation of judicial functions to persons who are not judges”.
We are asking for a minimum safeguard. The right of reconsideration would have the benefit of freeing an authorised person from the obligation to produce detailed reasons for every decision, as would be the case if the right of appeal, for example, were created. It has the additional benefit of going further than a right of review by guaranteeing judicial oversight of a decision.
More importantly, that statutory right would ensure compliance with article 6 of the European convention on human rights, which refers to the right to a fair trial. Decisions that affect people’s rights must be made by an independent and impartial person, and that person cannot be a member of court staff or employed directly by a tribunal. We consider this to be a proportionate safeguard that would be relevant to the new powers created by the Bill, given the provision in article 6 that
the determination of a person’s civil rights and obligations, or any criminal charge against them, must be undertaken by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.
The requirement for independence would apply not only to the tribunal, but to any judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power. As the Ministry of Justice acknowledges in its human rights memorandum on the Bill,
“In considering independence...guarantees against outside pressures are relevant—as is the question whether the body presents an appearance of independence”.
In the memorandum, the MOJ suggests that it is intended that
“case management decisions which it is proposed these authorised members of staff will be able to take will be uncontentious and not of sufficient importance to engage Article 6”.
However—I say this particularly to those who have practised in law and have attended court, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) made the point earlier—case management decisions can have a significant impact in shaping the ultimate outcome of a case. For example, a decision on the appropriate timescales within which a party should take a step in proceedings may be significant, as failures to comply with a timescale will lead to some or all of the party’s case being struck out.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Justice’s factsheet on the delegation of functions to non-judicial staff states:
“In future, we expect that authorised staff may be able to carry out a…range of…functions”
and responsibilities,
“including case management powers and some mediation roles.”
That suggests that what is envisaged is more than a delegation of purely procedural powers to authorised persons. In effect, a mediation role is almost like a judicial role, and people who have not been properly trained and are not properly qualified should not be mediating between the parties to the proceedings. Even in its own paper, the Ministry of Justice seems to expect those staff to play a much bigger role in decision making.
Labour Members strongly believe that Parliament must have a role in ensuring that the new system of delegation proposed in the Bill includes a backstop protection—the word “backstop” has been used a lot in the last few weeks—of the right to a fair trial. Our amendments have been endorsed by the Law Society, the Bar Council and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. They propose a statutory right to judicial reconsideration for any party to a judicial decision made by an authorised person or non-judge. This would afford stronger protection of the right to a fair trial, and would guarantee the independent and impartial determination required by article 6. Another of our amendments seeks to ensure that, in drawing up the rules on reconsideration, the procedure committee must consider which functions and decisions could clearly have a material impact on the substantive rights of the parties.
The safeguards we are calling for are not unreasonable; they are minimal if we understand that the provisions in this so-called “uncontroversial” Bill have the potential to profoundly impact on our justice system. But to truly understand the impact of this Bill, we have to look at it
in the context of the Government’s wider austerity agenda. The double delegation of powers that the Government are intent on introducing is a slippery slope that, without proper controls, puts rights at risk. We can resist this—and we do. Without further careful scrutiny and additional safeguards, this Bill has the potential to erode long-established legal rights.
The Government must take notice of the clear limitations of this Bill. They should listen to those who seek to improve this Bill and accept our amendments to ensure that we protect our judicial system.