Judicial Review and Courts Bill (Second sitting)

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

Q Much has been said about the importance of having people present when looking into such an important matter, which I understand, but there is an accessibility issue. One thing we have learned throughout the pandemic is that many people have had the advantage of accessibility and the ability to attend. Would it not be a real advantage, in some instances, to have a hybrid performance, so you could retain the formal court setting, with people both present and remote, if required?

André Rebello: Absolutely; if someone needs to attend court and they cannot attend other than remotely, that is fine. At the moment, the legislation relating to coroners allows witness evidence to be given remotely only under rule 17 of the coroner’s inquest rules. The easements that would be provided by the Judicial Review and Courts Bill would enable coroners’ courts to be far more flexible, with people appearing remotely, and also broadcasting. At the moment, under section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925, it is unlawful for a coroner’s court—or any court—to broadcast. The purpose of remote hearings is for participation.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Q I have a question for Mr Rebello. What is your view on coroners having the power to hold inquests without a hearing, particularly in non-contentious cases?

André Rebello: I have no problem with that proposal, that being another tool in the bag, as and where it is necessary, that is needed. My own preference is to go into court and record the hearing that I would have had, so that people can apply for a copy of what has been received and they can actually hear what has occurred. Certainly, it takes a lot longer to write down a considered decision than to go into court, go through the evidence orally and speak to it. Something that could take me five to 10 minutes in court, could take me an hour and a half to write down the issues, the law being applied, the rulings, the findings, determinations and conclusion, and then all the reasons which you would need for a considered judgment. That would be far, far more time consuming and may well take up far more coroners’ time. I appreciate not all coroners have access to courts all the time, and they cannot just go into court, so this is a very useful proposal, which I am sure will be used as and when needed.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Q We understand that the Chief Coroner will be providing guidance to coroners on the proposed five measures in the Bill. Do you think that that will ensure consistency of practice across coroner areas, given that coroners are independent judicial office holders and that judicial decisions are for them to make?

André Rebello: Absolutely. We should bear in mind that coroners are judges like any other judge, and every judge is an independent judicial office holder. No other judge, other than a properly constituted appellate court, can tell another judge how to decide something or do something. However, it is important to have guidance to ensure consistency not only between coroners, but internally for each coroner. What you have to bear in mind is that every coroner determines the facts of the case on the very facts that are before the coroner. No two cases are actually the same. If the Chief Coroner is minded to issue guidance, that can only help to make these things work.

When you look at the provisions, the ability to merge coroner areas is something that has been long needed, because at the moment you can only merge unitary authorities, not parts of those authorities and that has delayed the coroner reform project. It is sensible that the disapplication of reportable deaths under covid continues because we are not out of the pandemic. On remote hearings, we should be brought in line with the Courts and Tribunals Service, with some guidance to ensure consistency, so that that facility is used where necessary, but not overused, because the rule of law and open justice is very important and people should be able to attend to see justice being done.

As we have just discussed, written inquests, without going into court, will have their need when coroners are struggling to get a court. The ability to discontinue cases when we have not ordered a post-mortem is long over needed. Occasionally, we will have a GP abroad who knows the cause of death and there is no one else qualified to give a cause of death. The only way the coroner could open up the facility to discontinue that case would be to order an unnecessary post-mortem. The proposal will enable coroners to open an investigation and when the GP returns, to discontinue and have the death registered.

That does raise another issue that the Bill does not cover, and I am sure that Members will be aware that the sunset clause in the Coronavirus Act 2020 expires in March next year. The law used to be that a doctor had to treat a patient in his or her last illness and, relying on regulation 41 of the births and deaths regulations, had to have seen the patient within 14 days of death, or seen the body after death. The Coronavirus Act gave an easement, enabling 28 days to be used, whereby any doctor had seen the patient and any other doctor could see the body after the death. It looks as if that part of the Coronavirus Act will expire before Parliament has a chance to bring into force the medical examiner and death registration provisions. There will be a big lacuna in the work coroners are carrying out. If doctors are not seeing patients face to face and cannot issue death certificates, far more cases will be unnecessarily reported to the coroner. If there is any way to continue that coronavirus easement on death certification, it would be greatly appreciated, particularly by the bereaved.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Marco Longhi, followed by the Minister. You have five minutes, so a very quick question from yourself, Marco.

[Marco Longhi]

Q Mine is a question of consistency. There are no other aspects of the law, whether it be the public or private realm or whether it be employment law, family law or local government, in which applicants have more than two bites of the cherry, but it is immigration, and immigration alone, that seems to fall into a special category in which they have a third bite of the cherry. How can this be justified in a point of consistency?

[The Chair]

Just one of the panellists. Who wants to take it? They do not look willing. Are you directing it at anybody in particular?

[Marco Longhi]

Dr Tomlinson.

Dr Tomlinson: I would point out that Cart judicial reviews are not just immigration cases. While the caseload is made up mostly of immigration matters, they are not necessarily all immigration cases. My view would be that there are lots of different appeal routes and mechanisms across the justice system and in different areas of the justice system. As I said earlier, there can be reason for disagreement about that, but in my view the Supreme Court in Cart got the question right, and I think its reasoning was correct that the procedure that is potentially open to review in a Cart judicial review is one where there needed to be a limited—I stress limited because the Supreme Court made it limited—scope for review, and that has proven to be a relatively successful and cheap way of picking up important errors that affect people’s lives.

[James Cartlidge]

Q Going back to the question from the hon. Member for Lewisham East, about the England and Wales measures in terms of magistrates courts and so on, on the point of the principle of access to justice and technology, which is important for this Bill, there was an emphasis in some of the evidence that we heard earlier that having online procedures is negative for access to justice in many ways. However, from what Aidan O’Neill said earlier and the experience of the pandemic, particularly in England and Wales, technology is important for keeping access to justice. Would you agree that the expedited development of technology that was necessary because of the pandemic has improved access to justice, while we do need to have safeguards in place?