Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between James Morris and Julie Hilling

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Morris]

I will not give way again. I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion.

We should not create an environment in which people have the expectation that going for a judicial review will somehow impact on a decision. I welcome the changes in the Bill. We need to improve the balance between judicial review and local democratic accountability to enable public bodies to make long-term decisions on behalf of communities and constituents.

[Julie Hilling]

I rise to speak with some trepidation as I face a Chamber full of lawyers and barristers; I am neither, and never have been. I want to put it on the record that I am a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

All those who gave evidence to the Bill Committee spoke as one against the clauses under discussion. They said that the Government should not be making such moves. This is one of the nastiest bits of the Bill: it is very much a David and Goliath situation. From my perspective, and that of my constituents, the Government have already curtailed legal aid, and are now further curtailing access to justice. I understand why the Government want these changes. As a parent, an employer or a Minister, we never want our decisions to be challenged. I am sure that when Labour is in power, I will not want our decisions to be challenged. However, politicians are not always right. I know that that might come as a dreadful shock, but it is the truth.

Interestingly, Government Members on the Bill Committee were very concerned that interventions were coming from some of the most dreadful left-wing groups; in fact, the challenges came from everywhere. People were saying, “Actually you have got things wrong and we want them to be looked at again.” This is about people having access to justice and being able to go to judicial review; it is about David being able to stand up to Goliath. Those organisations that are prepared to support people are helping to hold the powerful to account. They are organisations that Members on both sides of the Chamber support, through subscriptions and fund raising, to help those who are least able to find the financial means to take their cases to court.

Much of this Bill is about secrecy and limiting access to justice, but David does need help to fight Goliath. By placing financial barriers in the Bill, we are saying that those organisations should not be part of our judicial system, but they are the part of civil society that ensures that society stays civilised. They are not a barrier to ensuring that the law is imparted properly, but part of ensuring that everyone in this country, whatever their means, has access to justice.

The Howard League, in its evidence, said that when experts receive permission to address the court through the provision of argument or evidence, they do so neutrally with the aim of assisting the court, and I very much believe in that. It has always been an established principle that the loser pays the winner’s costs, yet neutral interveners are unable to win or lose as another party may, and are almost always unable to recoup their costs. The proposals reinforce the position, and even make it worse, as they put additional costs against the interveners.

The proposals create perverse incentives. The better the case put forward, the more chance of higher costs being charged against the interveners. Let us think about those situations in which third parties have intervened. Last year, the Howard League intervened in a successful case brought by Just for Kids, which established the right of 17-year-olds to see an appropriate adult on being taken into police custody. Members might remember the tragic deaths of two 17-year-olds who were denied that right. In that case, the court recognised that many important arguments emerged from the intervener’s submissions. The Howard League said:

“It would have been perverse for the charity to be saddled with the costs of the government in responding to our legitimate and expert legal argument that was designed to aid the court in its decision making.”

The changes to the cost rules on interventions go directly against the advice of senior judiciary in their response to the Government consultation on the reform of judicial review in September 2013. Indeed, the courts can already impose cost orders against third parties, but the fact that such orders are rarely made shows that courts benefit from hearing from third parties.

Given that the Government took the advice of the judiciary not to bar third sector organisations from bringing claims by changing the rules on standing, the decision to introduce onerous cost consequences for those seeking merely to assist the court defies logic.