John Downey

Debate between Julian Huppert and Dominic Grieve

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

And the Government accepted that. For those reasons, we have a system. The right hon. Gentleman says that he explained to the House—he certainly did—about looking at other methods. I think that it is best for him to explain what publicity or otherwise that may have attracted. He is quite right that the system of giving an assurance to an individual that they are not wanted because they are indeed not wanted and there is no current basis for wanting them is not an unlawful process in which to engage.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman raised the oversight of the Law Officers. He is quite right that, during this process, the office of the Attorney-General operated as the co-ordinating point, because the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland could not and would not communicate directly with Northern Ireland Office, and therefore collated the information that was supplied. In fairness to my predecessors, it is probably right to say that they would have had no independent means to verify whether or not someone was wanted, and reliance for that was placed on the PSNI and its links with other police forces in the other jurisdictions of this country.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

This was a horrible and brutal murder, and the outcome is clearly grossly unsatisfactory. If the Attorney-General is sure that nothing further can be done in this case, I accept that, and I hope that he has exhausted all possibilities. Will he say more about how he will check that no other errors of this kind are waiting to come up later?

[The Attorney-General]

Those checks are now being conducted. They will not be conducted by me. My office might be involved in them, but I think that they are primarily for the Northern Ireland Office to carry out. I know from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that that is exactly what is happening.

As to my hon. Friend’s first point, if I had thought there were proper grounds on which this decision could be appealed, then of course the Crown Prosecution Service and I would have taken a different view. However, it is not in the public interest to pursue appeals that are pointless.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Huppert and Dominic Grieve

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

The hon. Lady has raised two separate points The first relates to the way in which the CPS has gone about prosecuting these cases. It has obviously been selective. Cases have to be brought to its attention, and it seeks to deal with those cases, particularly cases involving those who have initiated such comments. I think that that must be the right way of going about things. As for the hon. Lady’s point about penalties, she must understand that they are not a matter for the CPS. If Parliament wishes to make the penalties more severe, that is a matter for legitimate debate in the House of Commons.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

The Attorney-General referred to the new guidelines from the Director of Public Prosecutions on social media. They are very welcome, but does he agree that in some cases the law is not clear, and is being brought into disrepute? I am thinking of, for example, the Twitter joke trial under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.

[The Attorney-General]

The principle of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 places a higher threshold on prosecution than an ordinary abusive comment, but it must be shown that, in the circumstances, the comment was grossly offensive. I hope that the guidelines issued by the CPS—I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his appreciation of what they have done—will provide a framework that shows clearly what is and what is not acceptable, but there are bound to be areas that present some difficulty. The basic rule must be that the fact that someone is operating on social media does not give that person immunity from the criminal law.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Huppert and Dominic Grieve

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

The convention is an international legal obligation that we take extremely seriously and I have no doubt that our adherence to it is extremely helpful in raising standards of human rights elsewhere and in countries that have much poorer track records. The advantages to be derived from such an international legal obligation applied across countries need to be weighed in the balance when people are critical of how it is sometimes interpreted.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the Attorney-General ensure that all Ministers and members of his own party are at all times honest and accurate about both the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights?

[The Attorney-General]

I am quite sure that all my right hon. and hon. Friends always strive for accuracy in this department. It has to be said that I sometimes open my newspaper and am quite surprised to read some of the material published on the subject, so if anyone relies on such newspaper articles, it may be that they are likely to be misled.

Phone Hacking

Debate between Julian Huppert and Dominic Grieve

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I think that nobody in this House, or anywhere else, is in any doubt that payments to police officers—unless they are payments made in relation to a police officer who may have some separate employment, as happens sometimes—in respect of their duties from some extraneous source is illegal. I await any Member of this House who might tell me about a circumstance to the contrary but, at the moment, I cannot think of one.

[Dr Huppert]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. Does the Attorney-General agree that there are real issues not only about poor behaviour by the media, but about public trust in the police? Does he also agree that we have to be sure that the police will investigate people regardless of how powerful they may be and what the consequences may be, and regardless of whether they have been taking illegal payments from them? That is a serious issue and it does need an inquiry.

[The Attorney-General]

If that situation were not occurring in this country, the rule of law would be undermined, so I can assure my hon. Friend that if there was any suggestion that differential rules were being applied because some people are powerful and some are weak, that would be a very serious matter.

Injunctions

Debate between Julian Huppert and Dominic Grieve

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

In constructing the Human Rights Act, I do not think Parliament can be described as anything other than open-eyed as to what it intended to do about privacy law. It debated the issue extensively, there was a great deal of polemic on the Floor of the House, and it put in section 12 to try to emphasise that the balance should be in favour of freedom of expression. I am well aware of the fact that the way that interpretation has taken place has come in for criticism. It is also true, and the point was made by the Lord Chief Justice on Friday, that a remarkable feature of many of these orders is that they have never been appealed or taken further once they have been granted, so the development of case law in this area has as a result, on some of the matters complained of, not necessarily taken place. We clearly set out a framework and asked the judiciary to interpret it. Whether we were right or wrong to do that is a matter of legitimate public debate.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I agree with the Attorney-General that there is a balance to be struck between privacy and freedom of expression, but does he share my grave concern that how that balance is struck seems to depend more on the wealth of the individual concerned than on the facts of the case? Will he make sure that in any legislation or any other changes that happen, all people have access to the law, regardless of their wealth, whether in this area, libel reform or any other aspect?

[The Attorney-General]

As my hon. Friend will appreciate, that is ultimately a matter for my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, with regard to the legal aid framework, but it is right to say that the vulnerable in our society do enjoy legal aid in order to bring cases before the courts and, indeed, to get the help necessary to do so. It is perhaps also worth pointing out, as the Lord Chief Justice said on Friday, that a slightly odd feature of these cases, although an understandable one, is that those people in whom the media have an interest appear to be those who are very wealthy.