Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 (Extension of Duration of Non-jury Trial Provisions) Order 2021

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hay, mentioned in his contribution that the world has changed a lot in Northern Ireland with regard to this matter over the past 20-odd years. Certainly, my memory of when I started as a junior opposition spokesman on Northern Ireland 26 years ago is that it was a different world with regard to how juries were intimidated—and, of course, how judges, both Catholic and Protestant, were assassinated. The criminal justice system was hugely compromised by the Troubles and all that went with them.

Of course, that was exacerbated by the fact that Northern Ireland is a small place. Although it could be argued that juries can be intimidated in London and other great cities in Great Britain, it is not quite the same because of the small size of Northern Ireland and the fact that people know each other in a very special way. So we understand the reason for it, but the world has changed. As the Labour Opposition, we reluctantly support the extension but agree with the Minister that only a tiny number of cases are now dealt with in this way—I think he said it was currently 2% of criminal cases. In 2017, for example, out of 1,640 criminal cases, only nine were non-jury ones. However, that is still nine too many in a liberal democracy.

I welcome the Government’s review of this, as other members of the Committee have, and the setting up of a working party. Yes, we would like to know its terms—who goes on it and when it will report, and so on—but the idea of a working party to look at when this will end is excellent. I would particularly like the Minister to take up the important issues referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.

I will make another couple of points before I conclude. First, this measure comes against a background of a backlog of thousands of criminal cases in Northern Ireland which have not been heard yet, particularly because of Covid. That has an impact on the need to deal not just with those who perpetrated the crimes but with the victims. We do not want the victims to fall out of any criminal justice system because of that backlog. Perhaps the Minister could say a few words about how the Government propose to deal with that.

Finally, this is about security. We do not have the paramilitary threats that we used to have, but there is a paramilitary threat—linked most of the time to criminality—right across Northern Ireland. Although it is not huge, a number of Members of the Committee have indicated that political instability can lead to security problems, and there is no doubt that things are unsettled in Northern Ireland at the moment. The DUP is currently in crisis because of what happened to the First Minister. Clearly the unionist community is unsettled by the Northern Ireland protocol. Let us remember that the Good Friday agreement was there to satisfy both nationalists and unionists, so these things have to be addressed. We are almost in the marching season, and there could be difficulties unless we try to address that political instability.

I say for the umpteenth time that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the Government should now concentrate on engagement with the European Union—which itself should stop talking about legal writs and start talking. The Government should pay less attention to articles in newspapers and more to proper diplomacy and negotiation, and try to resolve at least the most difficult issues surrounding the protocol so that at least there is an attempt to engage Northern Ireland political leaders, the Irish Government and the European Union in ensuring that things settle down. If there is not a settlement politically, there will still be insecurity, and if there is still insecurity, because there are still nasty people about, there will still be a need for non-jury trials. Hopefully that will not happen, but let us hear what the Minister has to say in response.