Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill (Second sitting)

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Carol Monaghan]

Q Finally, having heard what the three of you have said about how we carry out investigations, do you understand that some people would have concerns that the Bill will not solve the issues of people like Major Campbell and the difficulties that he has had over the past 17 years?

Dr Morgan: It is the point I made, so I agree that it will not solve all of the problems as it stands.

Professor Ekins: Yes, it is a real concern.

John Larkin: I think it is wrong to see a so-called independent investigation as the answer. The issue is not the independence or otherwise of the investigation. In fact, investigations are substantially independent at present. The issue is efficiency and the fairness of what is investigated.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Q I have two questions on the point raised earlier about the territorial reach of the Human Rights Act. How would you limit that within the Bill? What would you suggest?

[The Chair]

Who are you addressing the question to?

[Joy Morrissey]

I would welcome feedback from each of the witnesses. How would you limit the territorial reach of the Human Rights Act within this legislation? You mentioned it as a point, and I wanted to hear how you would do that.

Dr Morgan: The Human Rights Act would have to be amended to say that the Act itself did not apply extraterritorially. Parliament could do that; what Parliament cannot do is of itself reverse the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. The nearest thing to do is for the Government to derogate using the process in the European convention. Those powers are already there in the Human Rights Act.

[Joy Morrissey]

Q My question in response to that would be, why are we confusing the two things? The European Court of Justice ruled that it had supremacy over the ruling of the ECHR, and we opted out of the Lisbon treaty in terms of the acceptance of certain aspects of the Home Office and Justice type of rules—we opted out of that. Within the EU structure, they sort of opted out of accepting the ECHR in terms of jurisdiction within their own court systems. I feel that there is a bit of muddying of the waters in terms of what exactly is the jurisdiction of what. Could there be a review of that?

Dr Morgan: In my view, this is nothing to do with the European Union. This is purely a European convention matter, so Brexit, thankfully, is out of the picture on this particular issue. It is purely a decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which extended the extraterritorial reach of the convention in the Al-Skeini case.

There are two things that one could do about it. One is to derogate in future conflicts, which the Government have said they will consider doing. Another thing is for the Government vigorously to fight cases, such as Hassan v. United Kingdom, where the Government rather successfully argued that the European convention should be interpreted in line with the law of armed conflict or international humanitarian law.

Those are two things that one could do. A third thing, which would require fresh primary legislation, would be to amend the Human Rights Act so that domestic UK courts may only hear claims relating to things that happen within the territory of the UK. That will not stop the Strasbourg Court from hearing claims against the UK. Parliament cannot unilaterally change the meaning of the European convention on human rights, but it can change the meaning of the Human Rights Act. Richard Ekins is more expert than I, so I would like him to answer.

[Joy Morrissey]

Q It just gives me pause for thought about why we have decided to do it, when the Court of Justice held that the EU could not accept the ECHR under the draft agreement and held that the agreement was incompatible with the TEU article 6.2, for the reason that the draft agreement undermined the Court of Justice’s autonomy. It allowed for the dispute resolution mechanisms. I am just curious why we have gone down this road. Perhaps the witnesses can clarify.

John Larkin: May I come in on that point? The Member is referring, I think, to decision 2/15 of the Court of Justice of the European Union—[Inaudible.]—incompatible with the European treaty. Many of us smiled at that decision, because it showed the Court of Justice of the European Union was not particularly enthusiastic about being subject to the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court—[Inaudible.]—

[The Chair]

Were you able to hear that answer, Joy?

[Joy Morrissey]

No.

[The Chair]

When you write to us on the previous point, Mr Larkin, will you also set out your thoughts on the question that has just been asked? We come to you, Professor Ekins.

Professor Ekins: It was a surprising decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union, holding that the EU was not really able to make a treaty commitment to join the ECHR. It shows that the EU legal order guards its legal autonomy jealously, but I do not think that it helps in this context.

In answer to the question about how one limits the territorial reach of the Human Rights Act, one thing would be to include a clause in the Bill that amends the Human Rights Act to specify its territorial reach. That could be the more limited reach of only applying in the United Kingdom, or it could effectively restate the position as it was held by the European courts in 2003 and accepted by our senior judges for many years thereafter, that the convention applies in the United Kingdom and in some very limited extraterritorial circumstances. I drafted a provision to that effect, if anyone is interested, in submissions to the Defence Committee and in other papers to the Policy Exchange. It is open to question, obviously, but it is certainly possible to frame a limitation in a clause that could be adopted in the Bill. It is not impossible; it depends on whether Parliament wishes to do so.

As Dr Morgan says, though, that would not change the UK’s position in relation to Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights. Derogation is an important addition to the meaning of the Human Rights Act. If you want to deal with the prospect of continuing litigation, investigations and reinvestigations, you have to address the scope of the Human Rights Act. The same thing is true in relation to Northern Ireland and those historic allegations as well. The intention is that that should be dealt with in a separate Bill.