---

Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Bill

I shall speak to Amendment No. 9. I think that I have already fully outlined the principles I wish to support, but I want to draw attention to the detail. My amendment would require that: "““The party applying for the witness anonymity order must disclose to the independent counsel all information relating to the proceedings that is in that party’s possession””." There should be a duty on that person to make full disclosure. As we have commented before, the question of the investigation by the independent counsel includes a, "““power to require police officers unconnected with the relevant trial to investigate and to report to him whether there are any matters … which should be drawn to the attention of the court””." That is really what an independent counsel should do in its role. We suggest that the role of independent counsel would be to examine or cross-examine a witness who claims that he is in fear if there is any doubt about it, or about the circumstances he refers to, or about his honesty or dishonesty generally, for the purposes of assisting the court in coming to its conclusion. It is necessary to repeat that paper applications, which became prevalent, must cease. This is exceptional and it must be treated in an exceptional way. Proper investigation should be carried out and the verification procedure should be set out in the Bill. I also repeat that leaving it to the judge to invent his own procedure under some common law inherent power to appoint special counsel is unsatisfactory. The procedure could vary from judge to judge and could be ultimately the subject matter of appeals.