Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Lords Chamber

I hope that I have dispelled many of the concerns regarding these reforms, and reassured your Lordships that these provisions are a sensible and proportionate means of dealing with a mischief that we intend to tackle, without undermining the discretion that should properly rest with judges. I therefore ask the House to support the government amendments.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I am very pleased that the Government have given way on the issue of principle in Motion B and have indicated that the identity of those contributing up to £1,500 funding for a judicial review will not need to be disclosed. The Minister said that our earlier debates on these issues had been highly intelligent. Without, I hope, debasing the currency, I want to make some observations.

The issue of principle is that the courts will now retain a power to hear a judicial review even if it is said that the alleged defect would not have made a difference in the individual’s case. I would have preferred the concession to be drafted in more generous language than an exceptional public interest, but concession it is. As the Lord Chancellor said in the House of Commons on 13 January at col. 811, and as the Minister confirmed this afternoon, it will be for the judges to decide how and when that test should apply. Indeed it will.

In applying the criterion, I am sure that the courts will have very much in mind Mr Grayling’s explanation of the purpose of the clause. He said that it is designed to prevent judicial reviews being heard when they are,

“based on relatively minor procedural defects in a process of consultation … That is what these proposals are all about”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/1/15; col. 812.]

I am confident that the courts will have careful regard to those explanations by the Lord Chancellor and that if the judicial review is not concerned with minor procedural defects but with allegations of systematic or deliberate wrongdoing, or errors of law in the interpretation of statutes which have a general effect, the discretion will be exercised so that the case is heard in the traditional way, as it should be.

In applying the clause, I would also expect the courts to pay close regard to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, then Lord Chief Justice, who I am delighted to see in his place today, said in R v Offen, 2001, 1 Weekly Law Reports 253. In the Court of Appeal, the noble and learned Lord was considering Section 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, which requires courts to impose an automatic life sentence on a person convicted of a second serious crime,

“unless the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances”.

At paragraph 79 of his judgment, Lord Woolf said that the meaning of “exceptional” depended on the statutory purpose, and where the statutory mischief did not exist, the case was indeed exceptional.

Applying that approach, as I am sure that the courts will do in the present context, the judges will be able to say—and I hope that they will—that the statutory purpose here is the very limited one identified by Mr Grayling of striking out judicial reviews which raised what he describes as “relatively minor procedural defects”.

Other cases, particularly those raising allegations of substantial errors of law or of systematic wrongdoing are outside the legislative aim and are therefore, on the approach of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, exceptional. They can be heard in the normal way. For those reasons, I am confident that we have arrived at a tolerable result at the end of this saga.

We have arrived at a sensible solution because, and only because, this House was prepared twice to disagree with the House of Commons. It should be noted that the concern about Mr Grayling’s proposals was expressed across this House. My amendments were supported by a very large majority of Cross Benchers who voted; they were signed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. The amendments were supported by the Labour Benches, led on this occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, with his customary wit and fire; he signed the original amendments. There was a very substantial rebellion in support of retaining judicial discretion from the Liberal Democrat Benches; the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, also signed the original amendments. Also of importance on the Floor of the House and behind the scenes, there was substantial support from noble Lords on the Conservative Benches who are wise and experienced, and respectful of the value of the rule of law, with some forceful speeches in support of retaining judicial discretion, in particular from the noble Lord, Lord Deben. I am very grateful for all that support.

I express particular thanks to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who has assisted the House by the force and clarity—indeed, the good humour—of his advocacy as the acceptable face of the Lord Chancellor’s department at all stages of the Bill. I know that he has worked tirelessly and successfully behind the scenes to arrive at a compromise which can be agreed by the Lord Chancellor and by noble Lords concerned about this clause. That is a remarkable achievement.

I should add one further observation and I do so with regret, but it needs to be said. I regret that on 13 January, when the House of Commons considered this matter for the final time, a Lord Chancellor again expressed comments that display an astonishing lack of understanding about the role of judicial review—one of the cornerstones of the rule of law. Judicial review does not, as Mr Grayling complained at col. 819, involve public bodies being “blackmailed”. He also suggested,

“severe doubts about whether secondary legislation should be subject to judicial review”.

These doubts appear to have no basis whatever other than the fact that the courts have, on a number of occasions in the last year, held that regulations made by the Lord Chancellor were outside the scope of his statutory powers.

Furthermore, judicial review is not, as the Lord Chancellor again suggested,

“now overtly used by campaign groups and third parties to seek to disrupt the process of government”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/1/15; cols. 819-20.]

Such comments make no sensible contribution to the debate. They demean the office of Lord Chancellor because they disrespect and undermine the vital role of judicial review in ensuring that the business of government is conducted lawfully.

However inconvenient and embarrassing it is to Mr Grayling to have his decisions repeatedly ruled to be unlawful by our courts, however much he may resent the delays and costs of government illegality being exposed in court and however much he may prefer to focus on the identity of the claimant rather than the substance of their legal complaint, it remains the vital role of judicial review in this country to hold Ministers and civil servants to account in public, not for the merits of their decisions but for their compliance with the law of the land as stated by Parliament. The discipline of the law plays a vital role in promoting the high standards of administration in this country that we are in danger of taking for granted. It helps to concentrate—and rightly so—the mind of a Minister or civil servant taking a decision whose legality he or she will be answerable for in public before an independent judge.