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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, on 8 April this year, the High Court in London ordered the release of four Rwandans suspected of genocide who were arrested and had been held in the UK since 2006. The evidence of their active involvement in the terrible events of 1994 in Rwanda, painstakingly gathered over many years, indicates that at the very least there is a case to be answered. The reason the High Court reached this decision is because of an anomaly in UK law which effectively allows impunity from serious crimes. I speak on this topic because of a long-term interest in justice for those suspected of heinous crimes and to introduce on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—who unfortunately is unable to be here today—his concern and, indeed, his intention to table amendments to the Coroners and Justice Bill to deal with this gap in the law. I acknowledge here the assistance of REDRESS, an anti-torture organisation of which I was once director, African Rights and the Aegis Trust. The amendments that will be tabled would allow jurisdiction in the UK Courts over those present in the UK and suspected of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. In so doing, they would address the limitations of the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which came into force in the UK in September 2001, regarding crimes committed after that date. At present the law allows such action only if the suspect is a UK national or resident in the UK. In the interest of clarity, let me give a hypothetical example. A person who is a UK national or resident charged with serious crimes against humanity committed after 2001 and outside UK territory is nevertheless subject to UK jurisdiction. However, should that person be a non-resident who happens to be in the UK, he or she is entirely free to carry on living in the UK with impunity. Thus the anomaly is that those suspected of extremely serious crimes can visit Britain, live in the UK without taking up residence or visit to obtain medical treatment and escape prosecution. As the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has pointed out, if a UK citizen and a non-UK resident Iraqi citizen were both to commit a crime against humanity, the UK citizen would face the law in the UK but the Iraqi would not. There are other inconsistencies which we would seek to remedy within the context of this Bill. A contradiction, for example, has arisen for all the right reasons in the case of the four Rwandan suspects recently released. To allow extradition to Kigali might have infringed the Human Rights Act by risking a less than free or fair trial, ill treatment and/or even the death penalty. That should not result, however, in their impunity. The amendments which will be tabled would allow a prosecution to go ahead, not in Rwanda but here in the UK, for these non-residents who conspired to commit genocide in 1994, within existing UK legislation. A second anomaly in the law concerns retroactive justice. It is a fundamental feature of UK, European and international law that statutes should not be retroactive. Justice requires that conduct which was not criminal when carried out cannot be penalised. Thus, those who are suspected of serious crimes committed prior to 2001 also have impunity under the International Criminal Court Act. The intention is to amend the Act procedurally to allow the UK courts to prosecute past acts that were crimes at the time using the Genocide Act 1969, the War Crimes Act 1991 and the Geneva Conventions Act 1957. In so doing, these amendments would simply allow the UK courts to implement existing law in a broader range of cases. These cases are by no means rare. It is reported that, since 2004, something like 600 cases per year have come up and it is believed that there may be more than 100 suspects in the UK at the moment against whom there is compelling evidence of involvement in serious crimes. A further amendment will seek to establish a dedicated and adequately resourced police unit to follow up such cases. As I understand it, the Metropolitan Police is fully in favour of such a unit and funding has been applied for. Ultimately, the concern is to close a gap in UK law into which suspects can and do fall, and thus remain in the UK. This anomaly sends a message to the world that serious crimes in the UK will not be dealt with by the justice system. In turn, this approach perhaps conveys a further message that crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide will not be punished due to an easily remedied technicality and that therefore the UK is a safe haven. Finally, unless we muster the political will to treat these crimes with the full weight of the law, we will be no nearer to building a culture of deterrence for such heinous crimes.