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Legislative Process

The case in which the hon. Lady was involved has been mentioned in the debate and she may wish to check what was said. I am grateful for her support. I am sorry my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has left. I have discovered that the sub judice rule does not apply to cases once they have been taken to the European Court of Human Rights or the European Court of Justice. I am sure he would be happy and relieved to know that. It is right that we should not seek to influence a court in its decision, but there is a distinction between civil and criminal proceedings. If a criminal case is brought against somebody, members of the public might end up being on the jury and might hear and be influenced by what had been said in debate in Parliament. Civil cases are heard by judges sitting alone, except in a few libel trials, and it is inconceivable that a High Court judge in a civil case would be influenced by what I said in a question to the former Foreign Secretary or what a Select Committee might have said in a report. The judge will come to his conclusions and his judgment on the basis of what he hears in that court and the representations made to him. It is wrong that the rule should apply in the same way to civil courts as it does to criminal courts. The rule should draw that distinction. Also, the rule should be restricted to the subject matter of the case, and should not apply to peripheral issues that people want to raise around it which are in some tangential way related to it.