Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Lord Garnier

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Although we talk about democracy, bad laws have been created, and we cannot wait five years until the next election for such laws to be changed. I say with respect to the hon. Gentleman that that would be completely wrong. If an election takes place tomorrow and a bad law gets passed, are you really saying our people should have to wait five years and change the Government?

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

I think I am getting a little confused, and it may be entirely my fault. I was under the impression that judicial review was about challenging in court the method by which the decisions of public authorities and the Executive had been arrived at. The judicial review court does not say that a decision was right or wrong; it criticises the process. So there is no question of a court repealing legislation, as the hon. Lady seems to be implying.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with that. Those of us who have been practitioners of law—a few such Members are present—will know that since coming into existence judicial review has been revolutionary for our country. We do not have a written constitution, and Lord Woolf has said:

“In our system, without its written constitution embedded in our law so it can’t be changed, judicial review is critical”

and the Ministry of Justice is showing a

“remarkable lack of concern for the precision of the facts”.

You might say, “Well, maybe Lord Woolf has an agenda here because he’s a lawyer and perhaps he wants money to be available,” but I am sure that highly respected individuals such as Lord Dyson and Lord Woolf, who understand the issue about the public purse as well legal matters, would not be saying these things if they did not believe that these parts of the Bill are fundamentally wrong.

In the 21st century, when we have now got a society that is fairer and kinder to its people, it is sad to have a go at people who are challenging the might of the state. Local authorities, institutions and Departments are still more powerful than the individual litigant or even pressure groups. You may not agree with a pressure group’s policy, but they are not as strong as the might of the state, and we should always have equality of arms. That is one of the fundamental principles of our law. You cannot have one side—local authorities and Departments—with all the money at its disposal and the best legal brains available against the ordinary person on the other side who has none of those benefits, or even pressure groups, who often do not have enough money to be able to spend hundreds and thousands of pounds on top barristers. They therefore cannot afford to lose.

We have to have parity of arms, instead of the state effectively using this opportunity to strangulate and stop the individual—the little person—or even the pressure group, many of which represent a group of our people who are interested in an issue. Pressure groups do not exist just for themselves: they are there because a whole lot of people in the country object to something or feel that there is a problem with an issue. They do not have the resources and they are being strangulated, yet the hand of the state is being strengthened.

I am surprised that a Conservative Government are trying to do this, as they have always taken pride in protecting liberties. What you are doing through all the various provisions and the changes being made to the judicial review, however, is effectively preventing the ordinary person from challenging the decision.

We say that judicial review will somehow make civil servants or public officials think, and wonder whether they might be challenged. Well, I think that is right. In a proper democratic system, local authority or state civil servants should be thinking about the effects of their actions. They should not be above the rule of law. They should be thinking about whether everything is right or not.

As a lawyer who has done some judicial review cases in my life and as somebody who worked in the Crown Prosecution Service as an in-house lawyer, I think it is right that a decision made by a prosecutor should be subject to challenge. When I am making my decision on whether a case should or should not proceed, it is right that that should be able to be challenged, because that would make sure I did my job properly as well as holding me to account. That is very important in our system. Civil servants and local authority officials absolutely should have to look over their shoulder to see whether they are making the right decision, because at the end of the day they are paid by the state and they are supposed to represent and govern our country in a proper way. If they are acting properly, professionally and honestly, they have nothing to worry about from judicial review. Only people who are not acting properly should be worried about judicial review.