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Human Rights Judgments: Joint Committee on Human Rights Report

I cannot give an answer on when it will begin; I am not in a position to do so. On getting the revised action plan on prisoners’ voting rights to the JCHR, which the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, mentioned, we are sorry that did not happen. It is our clear intention to keep the committee updated with action plans. Frankly, this was an oversight, and I am told that officials have been reminded of the need to copy action plans to the committee. I apologise for that. The Northern Ireland cases have been spoken to by a number of noble Lords. They presented particular challenges during their implementation. We have put together a very detailed package of measures to implement the judgments, and many steps have already been taken. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has made clear in its public assessments that the United Kingdom has now met many of the requirements of the judgments, but nevertheless we need to work to resolve the outstanding measures. In particular, we are awaiting the outcome of either inquest proceedings or review by the Historical Enquiries Team in respect of four of the cases. We have put together a detailed package of measures to implement the judgments, and the Committee of Ministers has made clear in its assessments that many of the requirements of the judgments have been met. Four of the six cases are subject to ongoing inquest proceedings and investigation by the Historical Enquiries Team, and those proceedings must run their course. We will continue to work with the Committee of Ministers to resolve the remaining measures. My noble friend Lord Dubs mentioned the Finucane case and suggested that the Finucane family should be allowed an inquiry that is not an inquiry under the Inquiries Act. The Government do not consider an inquiry under the Inquiries Act to form part of the measures required to implement the judgment. We consider that the very extensive investigation by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, together with subsequent decisions on prosecutions, meet the requirement of the judgment. The commitment to an inquiry was a separate commitment made many years ago as part of the political process. Let me reassure my noble friend that the Inquiries Act does not enable the Executive to withhold any information from an inquiry. It is the only statutory framework that now exists for statutory inquiries of this nature. Discussions are ongoing between the Government and the Finucane family. On the Baiai v Home Secretary sham marriages case, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, asked when the Government will implement that judgment. We are committed to remedying the declared incompatibility with Article 14. We were awaiting the outcome of the House of Lords appeal. As the noble Lord will know, that judgment was handed down just as we went into Recess on 30 July. As we speak, the UK Border Agency is liaising with relevant stakeholders, and we are still considering the most appropriate way to remedy the incompatibility. Criticism is made in the report and has been echoed in the debate about the fact that the committee has not had a response to all of its inquiries made of the Government and to every recommendation made in its last report on the subject. I stress that my right honourable friend the Minister for Human Rights did respond to all the points raised by the Joint Committee in relation to specific cases in its previous report. We continue to consider the points made by the Joint Committee about the general system for the implementation of judgments, which it repeats in the report that we are debating today. Improvements can always be made to any system, but the committee has acknowledged that we currently respond very well in general to judgments finding breaches of human rights. Any changes to the system for overseeing implementation will therefore not be seismic, but we will conclude our consideration in time for our response to this report. Our response, I believe, is due within two months. When we respond to the second report, we will wrap up any outstanding matters relating to specific cases. The Government understand why the Joint Committee feels frustrated that we have not been able to address all their detailed questions about particular cases. However, the evidence appended to the report shows that the Government have certainly been forthcoming with information in the past year, and I know that many other questions have been answered in correspondence between government officials and the Joint Committee’s advisers. As I say, we intend to respond within the usual two months to the current report. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, talked about the UK’s record on implementation. We are pleased that our record on implementation is recognised as being good. Although the Joint Committee’s report majors on a small number of outstanding cases, as one can understand it will, many UK cases have been discharged from scrutiny in the past two years. This shows that measures have been taken which the Committee of Ministers considers effective to remedy the breaches. The noble Lord also asked why the United Kingdom has the highest proportion of leading cases that have been waiting for more than five years for a remedy. At the end of 2007, the UK had 15 leading cases outstanding, of which eight have been subject to the supervision of the Committee of Ministers for more than five years. Of those eight cases, however, six are Northern Ireland cases on the use of lethal force that have given rise to specific implementation issues. That figure has heavily skewed the statistics, which do not otherwise indicate for us a systemic problem. I was asked whether we should publish an annual report by the Government on the European Court of Human rights. We believe that such an annual report would duplicate information that is available elsewhere, which frankly would not be a good use of resources. In particular, we know that the Joint Committee already receives regular updates about judgments against the United Kingdom. The example of the Netherlands Government is cited as an argument for an annual report to Parliament. The information that would be included in such a report is already widely available, and there would be no additional benefit in producing yet another report on the subject. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, and my noble friend Lord Parekh asked about the Ministry of Justice adopting a stronger co-ordinating role. In the past few years, the Ministry of Justice and its predecessor, the Department for Constitutional Affairs, has taken more of a central role in implementing judgments. However, the lead responsibility for implementing a judgment properly lies with the department in charge of the policy area in question. They also asked why there is no central database of judgments against the United Kingdom. All judgments against the United Kingdom can be accessed through the website of the European Court of Human Rights. At this time, we have found there to be no significant value in producing a separate database of cases and their implementation, which would be a resource-intense task. We have also been asked to commit ourselves to specific time limits for implementing cases, but the length of time that each judgment takes to implement depends first on what needs to be done and, secondly, on whether it requires primary legislation. To set a blanket time limit for all cases, therefore, would not be appropriate. It is the responsibility of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to ensure that implementation is carried out in a timely manner. We are not, of course, required to respond to the Committee of Ministers’ annual report on implementation of judgments. It is published by the committee for information. As for the Carson case, which the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, mentioned, apparently there was a judgment only two weeks ago. I am sorry in the circumstances to have to tell the noble Lord that it went against the side that he was clearly supporting.