John Downey

Debate between David Davis and Dominic Grieve

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her supportive comments about how the CPS and myself approached this case. I think that she knows that an inquiry will be held, and questions for that should be directed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. That matter will be dealt with by the PSNI and the independent ombudsman. Clearly, answers will be needed as to what has happened. In addition, I entirely accept that the public will want to be reassured as to whether this is an isolated instance of a letter being sent mistakenly or whether there might be other such examples, in which case people will want to know what can be done about that. My understanding is that since the current Government came into office some 38 letters have been sent out. I hesitated to comment about what happened under the previous Administration, but once I have that information I will, of course, supply it. It is right to say that the person who had been charged, Mr Downey, denied responsibility for any role in this outrage.

The final comment I would simply make is this: the victims, including those who survived but were seriously injured, and their families are a matter that the House has constantly to keep in mind. The rule of law requires that those who are accused of grave crimes should be brought to justice, unless there is some overwhelming public interest to the contrary, and I have to say that in this case it was clear to me that the public interest was entirely in favour of seeking to bring this prosecution.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

This country prides itself on its Government operating solely under the rule of law, so I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will forgive a layman’s question about the law in this case. He describes an administrative system, but under what law is this administrative system created whereby a well-respected judge in this country accepted that this letter should, in effect, give this man an amnesty? Whether or not the Attorney-General describes it in those terms, that will be how it is seen both in this country, including in Northern Ireland, and abroad. So under what law is this constituted? Can he give the House an absolute assurance that he is sure that the criteria that he laid down—the administrative ones—have been followed in all cases?

[The Attorney-General]

My right hon. Friend is, of course, right that judges should interpret and implement the law, but I have to say that I have no reason to fault the judgment in this case. As well as the public interest in prosecuting, clear issues of fairness in the way in which prosecutions and investigations are conducted are involved, which are subject to the potential for abuse of process applications—that is what took place in this case.

The judge provided reasons, clearly set out, as to why, in respect of one of the four grounds advanced, which centred on the letter that had been sent, it would in his view be wrong and an abuse of process if the prosecution were allowed to continue. That centred on the fact that the person concerned, Mr Downey, had been misled by the letter. I do not think that I can say any more than that.

As to the principles underlying the other letters, this was an administrative process—one that was certainly lawful—in providing information solely to those who were not wanted. As I said earlier, it is quite clear from this instance that something went badly wrong. Whether it went badly wrong in other instances is not a matter about which I can, at the moment, help the House.

Injunctions

Debate between David Davis and Dominic Grieve

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I shall deal, so far as I can, with each point in turn. First, the Government have made it clear that it will be a Joint Committee, and have asked

“Business Managers to establish a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider these issues. The remit will be to advise the Government on how current arrangements can be improved and put on a more sustainable footing, aiming to report in the autumn.”

The Government have also

“asked the Justice Secretary and Culture Secretary to liaise…on the Terms of Reference.”

The right hon. Gentleman’s second question was about privacy law. It is undoubtedly the case that it would be open to this House to enact a privacy law, if it wished. However, I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that he misquoted my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary, as what he actually said was:

“We’re not minded to have a new privacy law but we’re not ruling out the need for legislative changes.”

If I may say so, it is possible to have legislative change without necessarily having a full-blown privacy law, and this seems to me to be precisely the sort of issue that the Committee will need to consider, and in a measured and sensible fashion.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly raised the question as to whether a privacy law would make any difference to the existing arrangements. That, too, is an interesting subject for both legal and political debate, and it is precisely because that needs to take place that the suggestion has come forward that this is the best way in which to proceed.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions about enforceability. It has been clear for some time in a number of different spheres that the enforceability of court orders and injunctions presents a challenge now that information can rapidly be posted on the internet, but that does not necessarily mean that the right course of action is to abandon any attempt at preventing people from putting out information that may, in some circumstances, be enormously damaging to vulnerable people or, indeed, be the peddling of lies.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

May I press my right hon. and learned Friend further on the second issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale): the protection of parliamentary privilege? Last week in the report and the subsequent press conference, the Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice intimated that they wanted the House of Commons to extend the sub judice rules in order to restrict the use of freedom of speech under parliamentary privilege in this House and/or the reporting of it. Had that applied in 2009, the public would not be aware today of the Trafigura super-injunction and this whole issue would not have come to light. Can my right hon. and learned Friend please ensure that these proposals by the Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice do not in any way restrict either our rights or the rights of the press to report?

[The Attorney-General]

I have to say to my right hon. Friend that my reading of what was said is rather different. In the clearest and most unequivocal terms, both the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls spelled out the existing fact: that the privilege we have under article 9 of the Bill of Rights is unimpeachable in any court in respect of what is said in this Chamber. The control mechanism that is put in place is, in fact, entirely dependent on yourself, Mr Speaker. That then raises the question of the extent to which there is a necessity, by convention, for comity, whereby this House, through Mr Speaker’s authority, respects the rulings of other courts, being a court itself. As I understand it, there has never been any suggestion that any of the proposals being put forward call into question those basic principles. Indeed, as I pointed out in an earlier answer, the evidence is pretty overwhelming that where there is a lack of clarity in this area in terms of communication between constituent and Member of Parliament, there seems to be a universal view that it would be well if we could clarify things, and the Government recognise that.

Voting by Prisoners

Debate between David Davis and Dominic Grieve

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is right—he makes a very good point. The then Labour Government well understood this when they excluded from the text the words “universal suffrage”. They did that because although we have a very wide and general suffrage and a very democratic state, we do not have universal suffrage. The Strasbourg Court has imposed judgments on Britain that are outside the original treaty. We have signed a contract; it has gone beyond that contract.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Davis]

If my right hon. and learned Friend insists, although I am very short of time.

[The Attorney-General]

I have one advantage over my right hon. Friend, which is to have been able to go and look at the archives on what happened in 1951. I think the reasons why we objected to the use of the words “universal suffrage” were twofold: first, there was some anxiety over the position in the colonies; and secondly, there was a concern about whether proportional representation would be imposed on us as a result. Once those issues were clarified and removed, the United Kingdom signed up.

[Mr Davis]

I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend, who is a very close friend as well, checked the travail préparatoire in which one of his predecessors—Dowson, I think—said in terms that we had general suffrage but it could not be described as universal suffrage. That is what I was resting the point on.

Since about 1978, the European Court has adopted the view that the convention was what it termed “a living instrument”. That meant that the Court could arrogate to itself the right to decide what its remit was. It did that without any mandate from this House or any other house of representatives of the member states of the Council of Europe. This has been picked up, not by some Tory or right-wing Eurosceptic, but by Lord Justice Hoffmann, an eminent judge with enormous civil liberties credentials, who said that the Strasbourg Court has

“been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on member states”.

Even the Court itself understands this. In the minority report, Judge Costa, the President of the Court, a man who believes in extending the powers of his own court, said that he

“accepted that the States have a wide margin of appreciation to decide on the aims of any restriction, limitation or even outright ban on the vote”

and pointed out that the judges were not legislators and should not overrule the legislatures of the Council of Europe.

I want the European Court to succeed at its main business, which is why I differed from my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). However, I do not want it to try to interfere in the business of legislatures around the European continent.