Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Alex Chalk

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The procedure rule committee obviously has a place in our judicial system, and we accept that judges and others are involved in it, but everyone knows that there are times when, because of financial pressures, services are cut to the bare minimum. We believe that, to protect our judicial system, the functions concerned should be clearly set out, and those that will have an effect on someone should be decided by an authorised person with a legal qualification.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is getting perilously close to suggesting that judges will do justice when they are inside a court, but will be incapable of ensuring that justice is done when they are outside a court, on the procedure rule committees. Will she make it crystal clear that judges will always, in all circumstances, want to do justice, and can be trusted to do so?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

We are not suggesting that judges will somehow not be independent. As I have said, I have the highest regard for our judiciary in court, although from time to time we might disagree with the decisions that judges reach. In the real world, however, there are often targets to be met and financial constraints to be considered. We are saying that when the procedure rule committee is making rules, it should be guided by Parliament.

Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Alex Chalk

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We know that more and more people are now representing themselves in court because of cuts to legal aid. If those making decisions—those may appear to be administrative but may be quite crucial to these people—are not legally qualified and trained, errors are more likely to occur, because we now have so many people representing themselves who are not familiar with court processes or the courts. That is on top of the fact that so many courts are now being closed, and a lot of the work is being done off-site by means of technological improvements. Many cases used to be disposed of in a physical court building, and there would be judges, lawyers and people who could assist and give advice and information. Now, with so much being done outside of court buildings and from call centres, there is even less help available.

I will give an example. When I was prosecuting, defending or in court, someone would sometimes turn up who had no legal representation. They would be really worried about what was going on. I and many of my colleagues would give informal advice; it was not legal advice, but we could point them in the right direction—we could suggest things they could try. There was somebody to give them advice or assistance; the court clerks or staff in the court were also able to direct people informally. However, with fewer and fewer people going to court, more and more things being done online, and more and more stuff being carried out in call centres, where someone does not know who they are speaking to or what qualifications or level of experience they have, it is even more important to ensure we have this safeguard.

It is okay to have laws, but if we have no mechanism to enforce them, or to ensure that they are done properly, justice is not served. Therefore, the complete lack of information in the Bill about who the authorised people will be, and even about what work they will do, is completely wrong. That is why we feel strongly about it, as we mentioned on Second Reading in the House of Commons, and in the other place. To date, the Government have taken no notice of that.

We also have to recognise that some of the authorised people will be employed directly by Her Majesty’s courts and tribunals, which raises questions about accountability and independence. They may be more subject to pressures because of administration. Again, therefore, we need something to show that the people who will do these things are qualified.

Qualified barristers, solicitors and lawyers, even when they work in the courts system, have an appropriate professional body with codes of conduct they have to abide by. If they do not abide by those codes of conduct, they could be struck off from their practice. However, if the people who carry out the work are not legally qualified, such as administrative staff or clerical officers, they will not have to think about their independent professional bodies. In fact, they will probably be more subject to pressures of administration to speed things up. If somebody asks for an adjournment, staff might say no; if somebody wants certain documents to be disclosed, they will say that that cannot be done, because they will be under pressure to speed things up and deal with cases quickly. They will not be as concerned as a barrister, a solicitor or a chartered executive about what their professional bodies will say.

We also do not know what kind of functions these people will be given. As my hon. Friend mentioned, something that seems straightforward could actually be quite complicated. I refer to disclosure issues in civil cases, as well as in the criminal courts. Disclosure is an important part of a case proceeding properly. Someone may well ask for certain information, and the person at the other end will say, “No, you don’t need it,” but we do not know. Because they do not have the legal expertise and knowledge, there is a greater chance of errors occurring and things happening that perhaps would not happen if a legally qualified person were exercising those powers.

The Government’s approach is that all these issues can be dealt with by the procedure rule committees, which are made up of judges and other practitioners. They are also under pressure and financial constraints, however, so they would also have to look at pressures and so on, and they might not be able to do things as independently as we might ask.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is, of course, making important points, but we can have a degree of confidence that the judges who head up the committees, who have shown themselves to be scrupulously and fiercely independent, would continue to behave in exactly that way. Does she not agree?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I have, of course, the utmost regard and respect for our judiciary, but I believe that, in the procedure committees, financial constraints and pressures sometime come into play in trying to speed things up through the courts system. The ethos is that a case should be dealt with very quickly—there is nothing wrong with that—and that there should be minimal interactions between lawyers in the court process. When the procedure committees make certain rules, such as defining who the authorised person is, what is wrong with Parliament saying that the starting point should be that those authorised persons must have been legally qualified for at least three years?

It is also important that we have an idea about what kind of things the authorised persons can do. Procedure committees can make rules, but they may be constrained by trying to get things through quickly. There may be things that they think that authorised persons can do, but, in fact, they should not, because they are not judicial. I do not see what is wrong with us, as Parliament, saying, “Look, this is the bare minimum that the procedure committees should be thinking about.” Then they can add to it.

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. May I respectfully press her a little on this? On the one hand, she says that she has enormous respect for the procedure rule committees, the judges and the highly qualified people who occupy these positions, and that they would always act in a way that is consistent with justice. On the other hand, she says that, actually, they will not, because they will ensure that a desire to avoid delays trumps justice. She cannot have it both ways. If she trusts the judges, she needs to come out and say that she trusts them to act in the way that they have, in time-honoured tradition, which is by putting justice first.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My observations relate to when judges are dealing with an individual case. Of course, we know that they are independent, but when someone becomes part of an administrative body, a procedure committee or an arm of the state—I mean that in a loose way, not in terms of a formal relationship—sometimes the criteria that they look at are different from when they are dealing with an individual case presented before them.

I will give an example, albeit not one that relates to judges. The Crown Prosecution Service, an organisation for which I worked for a number of years—I still have friends who work in it, even though I left years ago—has had different people serve as Director of Public Prosecutions. However, prosecutors who have been there for a long time say that, bar perhaps two DPPs who were really concerned about ensuring that the department was fully financially resourced, and who actually fought hard for it to get resources, the other DPPs did not make that sort of effort. People do act for administrative purposes.

The reality is that senior people at the top of organisations, when they are doing administration and are running institutions, look at things such as money and financial administration, try to save as much money as possible, and try to push things along as quickly as possible, because that looks good in their statistics. Because of that, we would say that what we are asking for is not too weighty. We have tabled very reasonable amendments. The people who will make some of these enormous decisions should be legally qualified and—we will come on to this later—we should consider what kind of things they can actually do. I do not think there is anything wrong with giving a steer to procedure committees. They can deal with some of the other rules, but we should have some basic minimum standards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Amendments 6 and 7 have been tabled to ensure that there is a safeguard for claimants who do not accept a decision made by authorised persons. There should be a right to a statutory reconsideration, and the claimant should be able to apply in writing, within 14 days of the service of order, to have a particular decision reconsidered by a judge of the relevant court. They are strengthening provisions. As we do not know who authorised persons will be or what delegated functions will be given to them, we believe that if claimants disagree with important decisions, they should have a statutory right to reconsideration. The Bill makes no reference to that.

Amendments 8 and 9 relate to the issue of material impact. When a decision is being made on whether there a should be a reconsideration within 14 days, we ask that there be consideration of whether the function could have a material impact on the substantive rights of the parties. That means that we accept and acknowledge that one should not be able to ask for reconsideration simply because one disagrees with the decision of the authorised person; one must have a cogent reason. There must be proper grounds for requesting a reconsideration. We would define and decide what is an appropriate reason for asking for a reconsideration by assessing the limb of material impact on the substantive rights on the parties, which I think speaks for itself. That relates to decisions made by authorised persons that are material and important to the claimant, who should be able to ask for a reconsideration of that decision.

We suggest that the application in writing should be sent within 14 days of the decision, but it could be 21 days if the Government wished to change that. We think that 14 days is the minimum period that should be allowed for the reconsideration application to be made. The Government’s intention is to leave the procedure committee to decide fully what “material impact” means, whether there should even be reconsideration options for claimants, and by what processes that must be done.

We are effectively asking for safeguards for litigants. I will try not to repeat the same points, but it is important to remind the Committee of a point I made earlier, which was that a number of claimants are not legally represented because of cuts to legal aid, both civil and criminal. Many people now go to court without any legal advice, and are basically litigants in person or may have a McKenzie friend. To ensure that decisions are made properly, if there is a material impact on the substantive rights of parties, claimants should be able to ask for a reconsideration of the decision by a legally qualified judge of the court. People will have more confidence that the decision has been made properly, if it is made by a judge.

It should not be left to the procedure committee to decide, in theory, whether to allow reconsideration or to decide, off its own bat, what kind of decisions should be up for reconsideration. We ask that it determine and put into place rules on how reconsideration applications could be done.

Again, those three things are there to enhance the right of the ordinary person going into the court system and to ensure that our judicial system maintains the highest standards, as accepted throughout the whole world. For Parliament not to have democratic oversight of the matter, and not to indicate what the procedure committee should do, is a derogation of our duty to the people of this country. We are effectively looking after their interests. A judgment or decision by an authorised person should be subject to review by a judge. We accept that should not be done gratuitously, or in cases that do not warrant it, but if the decision has an impact on the rights of the person, that should be allowed. We ask the procedure committee to set out a procedure for applying for judicial reconsideration.

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point; I will be interested to hear what the Minister says. How does she propose that an assessment be made about whether the decision truly had a material impact? A decision on whether to grant an adjournment or on whether to allow evidence to be admitted could in certain circumstances have a material impact, but in other circumstances might not. How would she ensure that the procedure to determine that was effective and efficient, and did not clog up the courts?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

We could include the criterion of the impact on someone’s rights. When we look at a case, we can work out whether an adjournment or a particular issue regarding disclosure would have an impact. The legislation should have that as a criterion in determining whether there should be judicial reconsideration. Obviously, we assume that the procedure committee would set out a procedure whereby, when a person writes to the court to ask that something be reconsidered, it goes to a judge, who works out whether this was something that impacted on the person and should therefore be subject to reconsideration. The legislation does not do any of those things.

Although we accept that some administrative functions carried out by judges can be delegated to the “authorised people” defined in the Bill, when a judicial legal function is given to other people, there should be a right to ask for reconsideration of the decision if a litigant is unhappy with it. To avoid anything flimsy, we have helpfully put in the impact aspect, so that reconsiderations are not a matter of course but are limited to appropriate cases. We would leave it to the procedure committee to make rules as to what the procedure would be.

The amendments are perfectly reasonable. The Minister mentioned that some Lords in the other place said that the provisions were okay, but if we look at the Hansard, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, Lord Pannick and others said that they had concerns, not just about the issue of 14 days’ reconsideration, but also in relation to the authorised persons. The Government have put all these things about judicial functions, delegated persons and authorised people into one clause, but concern was expressed in the other place about the need to make the legislation better. Those are my words.

We have gone further than some of the noble Lords in the other place, but we tabled the amendments not for the fun of it, but because we genuinely and sincerely believe that they would ensure that processes were carried out properly, justice was done properly, and properly qualified people would deal with issues. If there are decisions that people are unhappy with, they should have the right to ask for reconsideration within 14 days, if that is appropriate—or 21 days; I would be happy with whatever additional days the Government wished to add.

Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Alex Chalk

Second reading committee: House of Commons
Monday 2nd July 2018 General Committees

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

It is a matter of great regret that the hon. Lady is taking such a partisan approach. In 2009 a Labour Government were in power in the United Kingdom, and they did absolutely nothing. Will she take this opportunity to come together with Members across the House and celebrate that swift movement has been made to right some wrongs?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will come on to our working together collectively. As the Minister is aware, we do not object or seek to amend any part of the Bill. However, for the last eight years we have had a Conservative Government, and more specifically the Minister mentioned this problem last year. In any event, as I said, it baffles me that this is not a criminal offence. Of course, we will support it becoming one, but we cannot pretend it has not been ignored for so many years. That would not do justice to the victims, witnesses and other people affected.

Women have increasingly been speaking up, with one of the first being Gina Martin, who founded the campaign. Less than a year ago, she was at a festival in London with her sister when she was horrified to notice that the man behind her had taken a photo up her skirt. Shocked and distressed, she sought help from the police, but the law was not sufficient to ensure that they could help her. That is why a change in the law is required. Indeed, Dame Vera Baird, QC, from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said that the current legislation

“is far from clear as there is no specific offence”.

We must remember that many women right across the UK are being affected. It can happen to women on public transport, in a park, at a concert or even just on a walk along a busy street, without the victim even realising that a photo has been taken.

In an article in The Guardian, Emine Saner tells the story of Lucy Parkinson, then 21 years old, who was shopping in Ealing, west London, when she heard an altercation behind her between two men. She said:

“I was crossing the road, and got stuck with a pack of other people at a traffic island…I was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and a white knee-length skirt.”

One man ran off and the other told her he had

“chased him away because he had seen him ‘upskirting’ me…I hadn’t even noticed it happening…and that’s the most unsettling part—in a city, you just don’t notice physical proximity to strangers. It could have happened a dozen other times too, for all I know.”

She continued:

“I felt unsettled, targeted, and helpless; there was nothing that could be done about what had happened, and nothing I could do to prevent it from happening again.”

It is impossible to judge how many women may have been victims of upskirting, although a quick internet search will bring up hundreds of sites and thousands of images. There may be millions more pictures on phones and laptops, taken on the streets, on escalators in shopping centres, on trains, at bus stops and in supermarkets, nightclubs and other places, that may or may not have been shared.

The Minister is aware, as Members will be, that there are endless web forums where amateur upskirters can exchange tips on how to get the best pictures. One was posted by a man who had made a “cam-bag”—a holdall with a specially made pocket with a hole for a digital video camera lens. The post says:

“Never forget to shoot their faces before or after to know which girls the ass belongs to...After the first…asses, they look very similar and you lose most of the fun. After upskirting them, either step back and wait for them to turn or step by them and shoot directly sidewise.”

Another poster on the forum said that he operates

“mostly at theme parks and tourist hotspots, or really anywhere that draws a large crowd of spectators and cameras”.

He finds

“an attractive young lady, preferably a teen for my tastes, and then I evaluate the situation.”

He would sit down next to a young woman and surreptitiously film her while pretending to fumble for new camera batteries in his bag.

On another site, one man posted:

“I’ve been upskirting chicks, mostly at clubs, for almost two years. The club I go to is a great spot, real crowded, strobe lights going, loud music, so no one notices me sitting near the edge of the dance floor and if a woman in a skirt ends up by me I stick the cam under and snap.”

Those stories makes one aware of how shocking and vile this behaviour is, and I am pleased that—eventually—it is to be outlawed. Again, we must thank the campaigners and hon. Members who have been pushing for that.

In conclusion, the scope for people taking upskirt photographs has clearly increased with the development of mobile phone technology. A gap in the law has allowed this to happen, and I am proud that for some time we have backed the campaign to bring this to legislation. I have a couple of technical questions, however. First, the legislation for this offence as it stands effectively has two limbs. One is that the act is done for sexual gratification. The other is that it could lead to harassment or distress. We are told that if someone is convicted under the sexual gratification limb, that can lead to their being put on the sexual offences register.

I have some practical questions. Would the prosecutors have to charge these things as two separate offences, counts, indictments or charges, or is it up to the justices in the magistrates court and the jury in the Crown court to decide which limb to convict the defendant on? Can the prosecutors draft it as one count with two parts? If a perpetrator is convicted on the first limb, but evidence shows that what has happened falls under the second, will the prosecutor be able automatically to amend the indictment and put a new charge in, or will they have to seek permission from the justices to do that?

Those are legal and technical questions, but they are important, because when a case comes before a prosecutor, they need to know whether to charge with one offence, depending on the circumstances of the case, or to charge with both and let the jury, in the Crown court, or the justices, in the magistrates court, know. Perhaps we can have some clarity on that.