Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Pannick]

As an amendment to Motion B, at end insert “, but do propose the following amendment in lieu of those Amendments—”

Amendment in lieu

102B: Clause 64, page 65, line 46, at end insert—
“( ) The duties of the court or tribunal under section 31(2A), (3B) and (3C) of the Senior Courts Act 1981, or section 16(3B), (3C) and (3D) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, are subject to the discretion of the court or tribunal to act otherwise where it considers it in the public interest to do so in all the circumstances of the case.”

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister. His door has been open in recent weeks to discuss matters of concern and interest with noble Lords who are concerned about this clause.

On Report, your Lordships voted by a majority of 66 to amend this clause to maintain a degree of judicial discretion. The Government lost that vote because they lost the argument. Judicial review is of central importance to the rule of law. It is the means by which citizens seek to establish before an independent judge that public authorities, including Ministers, have acted unlawfully.

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[Lord Faulks]

It is a matter entirely for the House. The whole of the speech was before the House of Commons. It was clearly regrettable. The Lord Chancellor has written a letter which is deposited in both Houses. This House will take the view that it thinks appropriate.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister. He has been put in a quite impossible position, not, I think, for the first time, and I sympathise with him.

There are two central points here. The Minister very fairly accepted that the Lord Chancellor inadvertently misled the House of Commons when it considered the amendment that was approved by your Lordships. The Lord Chancellor misled the other place on the very issue that is at the heart of this amendment. He wrongly suggested that there is an exceptional circumstances provision in this clause which confers discretion on the judge. That alone is reason enough for this House to invite the other place to think again, and to do so on the basis of an accurate statement by the responsible government Minister as to the terms and effect of the clause that he was putting before the House of Commons.

However, that is not all. The public interest amendment is essential to the rule of law. That a Lord Chancellor should regard the need for a fair procedure and legality as unimportant technicalities which should be excluded from judicial control is, to my mind, profoundly depressing and alarming. I say to the Minister that that is not a matter of rhetoric but of substance.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, suggested that this clause is a development of the current law. However, the change is not merely to alter the test of inevitability to a test of highly likely; the vice of the clause that we are debating is that it imposes a duty on the court in all circumstances to throw out judicial reviews without retaining any discretion in the public interest. The Lord Chancellor and the other place should be invited to think again about the need to retain judicial discretion in the public interest, as Motion B1 states. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Pannick]

As an amendment to Motion C, leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendments 103, 104, 105 and 106”.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, the amendments that were approved on Report by your Lordships’ House by a majority of 33 arose out of two concerns about these clauses on financial information.

The first concern is that the judges would be prevented in all circumstances from granting permission to bring an application for judicial review unless the relevant financial information has been provided. As with Motion B1, on which your Lordships have just voted, so with this Motion C1 a degree of discretion is appropriate to permit the judge to decide that a case should be allowed to proceed in the public interest, even if some financial information has not been provided. An absolute bar is inappropriate in this context and the removal of all judicial discretion is inappropriate.

The second concern is about the effect of the provisions on people who contribute to the funding of a judicial review. The Minister’s helpful letter of 4 December to noble Lords explained that the Government wish to ensure that there is no “chilling effect” on contributions because of a fear by potential contributors that they will be ordered to pay the defendant’s costs. Therefore, as I understand him, the Minister has said that it is not the Government’s intention that those who provide small amounts of funds should be subject to costs rules, and that that will be ensured through rules of court.

As I understand it, the rules will state a threshold so that people contributing less than the specified amount would not need to be identified by the claimant and so would not be liable to be ordered to contribute to the defendant’s costs. That is all very laudable. The problem, however, is that the Minister has not told the House what the threshold level will be. If the level is too low, it will inevitably deter people from contributing to judicial reviews brought in the public interest because of the risk that the contributor will have to pay the defendant’s costs.

Funding judicial review has become much harder in recent years with the decline in legal aid. It is very regrettable that the Government should now wish also to impede the ability of claimants to fund judicial review applications by private contributions. I am not satisfied by what the Minister says unless he can assure the House that the threshold level will be sufficiently high that it will not deter modest or reasonable contributions to the funding of judicial reviews.

[Lord Faulks]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Perhaps he could assist the House by saying what he would consider a modest contribution.

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[Lord Pannick]

I would suggest that one should look up the average cost of a judicial review application and say that if the individual concerned is contributing less than, say, 10%, 15% or 20% of the costs, then that figure would not lead to any cost implications for that individual. However, I am not the one who is putting forward this proposal; it is surely for the Minister to come forward to the House and tell us what his proposal is. This House voted on Report that it was not satisfied with the Government’s approach. The Government now come forward and invite the House to agree with the other place by reference to this new proposal, and I simply suggest to the House that the Government’s proposal cannot be adequate unless your Lordships are told what the relevant figure is. I beg to move.

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[Lord Faulks]

In answer to my noble friend’s first question, I did use the word “straightforward” and that is entirely correct; I adhere to that. On the second question, I am reluctant to give figures because, for the reasons I have given and in terms of what we are talking about, it relates to a small contribution to a fighting fund. That would not be £10,000 to £15,000. I do not think it is appropriate to go beyond that. That is a matter that I will leave to the rule committee: it will arrive at an appropriate figure in the light of its experience.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, this is a really puzzling matter. The Minister accepts that a threshold figure should be included in the rules below which a contributor to the funding of a judicial review should not be liable to be identified or pay costs. That is a vital concession, because without it, private funding of judicial reviews in the public interest would not be able to continue. However, the Minister is unable to say what the threshold figure will be; he is not able to state any criteria by reference to which that figure should be determined, and he is reluctant, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, to say more than that it will be a figure less —significantly less, as I understand him—than £10,000 to £15,000. That, I suggest to noble Lords, is quite unsatisfactory in relation to the Government’s attempt to persuade this House not to insist on its previous amendment.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said that the rule committee will deal with this in an independent manner. However, the rule committee will no doubt be heavily influenced by what the Government say is the purpose of this. I am not suggesting that the rule committee is bound by what the Government say, but the Government will have a very considerable influence, particularly when there are no criteria set out in the amendment. In any event, there is also—as emphasised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood—a vital need in these clauses to retain a degree of judicial discretion in this sensitive context. The Government wish to impose absolute duties again and I, in this context, as in the previous context of Clause 64, suggest that judicial discretion should be retained. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Pannick]

As an amendment to Motion D, leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 107 to which the Commons have disagreed and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 107A, 107B, 107C, 107D and 107E in lieu thereof”.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I shall be brief, given the time, given that your Lordships’ House has debated this issue on two substantive occasions already, and because I apprehend that your Lordships’ House will be anxious to move speedily to a vote on this matter.

Judges have repeatedly emphasised how helpful they find the contributions of interveners to be. Courts already have ample powers, which they exercise to control who can intervene on what subjects and with what costs consequences. The Government have at no stage in the debates on this Bill in either House identified any cases whatsoever in which the courts currently lack adequate power to deal with abuse or misuse of interventions. This clause, even with the amendments approved in the other place, will inevitably deter interventions which the courts will regard, and do regard, as valuable in determining the results of judicial review. I simply cannot understand what the Lord Chancellor hopes to achieve by this clause. I suggest that this House should ask the other place to think again. I beg to move.

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, it has been a short debate. The issues have been fully covered at previous debates and at previous stages. I am not going to prolong this debate, but the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, says that the Government have not identified any issue. I made a rather more lengthy speech at an earlier stage in which I did identify—or at least attempt to identify—what the Government were driving at by this amendment. It was indeed based—I have to declare an interest—on personal experience of lengthy interventions, which no doubt a judge with all good intentions envisaged being very minor, which turned out to be extremely major in terms of their volume. These involve lengthy skeleton arguments, volumes of authorities and lawyers no doubt seeking to justify their existence. This is not helpful.

Of course, judges are capable—it is perfectly true—of expressing their disapproval, of limiting those interventions by appropriate methods. None the less, those who are involved will have inevitably had to spend time in preparing the case, in the eventuality that all of these interventions will in fact be treated with considerable scrutiny. Perhaps the case may be lengthened.

We consider this is an appropriate compromise. It does no more than identify the sort of cases that judges should be looking at, and probably are looking at, to make an order against interveners in appropriate circumstances. There are exceptional circumstances and judges will know when they are helped and when they are not helped, but to suggest that all is perfect in the world of interventions is simply to ignore the reality.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, it is not an acceptable compromise for the Government to bring forward a clause, with amendments, which will undoubtedly deter the interventions which the courts currently find helpful. There are interventions from all numbers of persons and bodies, many of which have made representations to your Lordships that this clause will deter them from coming forward and assisting the court. I have seen representations from bodies ranging from Liberty to Buglife. They are concerned that they cannot, for financial reasons, seek to assist the court if they fear that, other than in exceptional circumstances, they are going to be liable to pay the costs under this provision. For that reason I respectfully suggest to noble Lords that we should ask the other place to think again about this vital matter. I wish to test the opinion of the House.