Armed Forces: Serious Crime

Lord Burnett Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I fully take the point made by the noble Lord. I am sure he is thinking of the cases that arose during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence is working with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to ensure that the principle that investigations by the police or anyone else in Northern Ireland should be fair, balanced and proportionate is embedded in the implementation of the Stormont House agreement.

[Lord Burnett (LD)]

My Lords, the fundamental ethos of a court martial should be that you are tried by your peers. That means that if you are a fighting soldier you are tried by other fighting men and not, may I say, by people who have never even heard a shot fired in anger. My second point is that conviction by a simple majority is grossly unfair. I raised these matters with the noble Earl before and I hope that there will be an opportunity for them to be considered accurately and fairly to ensure that we do not have miscarriages of justice the like of which we have recently had.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the first point made by the noble Lord is well taken and I fully agree with him. On the question of majority verdicts, as he knows, that system has been found fair and lawful in the courts, but I recognise that there are strong differences of opinion about this, which is why we shall be examining that matter, among others, in the run-up to the Armed Forces Bill of 2020.