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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, one of the great concerns that I have—many people who are currently concerned about the crisis that faces the British Parliament are very much aware of it—is the difficulty that the flood of legislation we now have provides for those of us who are attempting to scrutinise in detail very complex and often very important pieces of legislation. The Bill that we have before us now is one that has the greatest repercussions for civil liberties, for freedom of speech, for issues concerning the rights of prisoners, and for issues concerning the rights of those who live here as asylum seekers or are in other ways detained in this country. It is very difficult, in a situation where, at Second Reading, there is precisely one minute for every 20 clauses of the Bill, actually to deal with it in the way that Parliament should. I begin by saying that I do hope the Government’s managers will think very carefully about the current organisation of legislation, which means that we can spend hours and hours and hours on the Marine and Coastal Access Bill and only a limited amount of time on one of the most important Bills to be put before this Parliament. Having said that, I will use my eight minutes as best I can. I will refer very quickly to the two particularly controversial issues that have come up in the half an hour or so that Back-Benchers have had to discuss the Bill. First, on the question of article 61 and the freedom of speech, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has made a powerful case and I accept the balanced approach that has been made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham. One needs to have a balance between the instigation of hatred— which I hope that very few of us, if any of us in this House, would ever support, certainly against people whose sexual orientation is for some reason not that of the mainstream—and, on the other hand, a shrinkage of the concept of what freedom of speech is all about. This is deeply disturbing, whatever our politics may be, and it is the duty of this House in particular, given its long constitutional obligations, to ensure that freedom of speech is maintained when it means only no more than creating some offence to somebody, as distinct from arousing attitudes of hatred or persecution towards them. It is a difficult balance. It is one that I fear we may be getting quite badly wrong. Secondly, I refer to another controversial issue that has come up—that of assisted suicide. I remind the House of a commitment by the Minister of Justice in the other place: ""We therefore intend to legislate to update the Suicide Act".—[Official Report, 17/9/08; col. 142WS.]" She went on to say that the entire Act needed to be looked at again in the light of new information, concerns and legal judgments. That was a crucial pledge—that the other House should look in detail at the whole issue of suicide and assisted suicide. I say with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Bach—given the time limitations, he introduced the Bill as thoroughly as he could—that it is not enough to say that this should be left to a Private Member’s Bill. The Government should stick by the Minister’s commitment given in 2008—that this is a matter that the lower House should consider in detail, because it is too important to be left in abeyance and in a state of uncertainty. Thirdly, I strongly support the arguments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza—eloquently supported by the former Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton—regarding the absolute necessity of introducing legislation to ensure that those who are accused of genocide can be prosecuted here if they cannot be returned to their own country for fear that they would not get a fair trial. We prosecute torturers on exactly the same grounds. There is no argument for prosecuting torturers who cannot be extradited for the reasons given in the House of Lords judgment of February 2009 when we cannot prosecute those guilty of genocide. I add a further factor to the case argued so effectively by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer; namely, that it is inherent in the crime of genocide to seek delay. A UN-assisted trial is taking place of a major torturer who was principally responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people in Cambodia 30 years ago. His name is not easy for me to pronounce but for those who wish to pursue the matter he is a Khmer Rouge leader, Kaing Guek Eav, known as "Duch". He is before the international tribunal for what was done in Cambodia 30 years ago. That is still possibly the worst genocide since the Holocaust. It has been in his interest—I was in Cambodia last year and saw this for myself—literally to bury the evidence as far as possible so that this terrible man could not be brought before an international tribunal. We are still seeing the digging up of mass burial places in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as was indicated by my noble friend Lord Ashdown in his recent book. Many people were mutilated before being killed during the wars of the former Yugoslavia. Those cases have not yet come before the tribunal. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, pointed out, cases are even now emerging of genocide in other parts of the world, of which the most recent examples occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina and not least in Rwanda, as he pointed out. We must change the law in this respect and the Bill is a vehicle that enables us to do it. I have two final points. One concerns the crucial importance of coroners being seen to be independent. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, pointed out, the Bill contains detailed provisions to try to ensure that independence in order to satisfy the bereaved relatives of the victims of crime, and to satisfy public opinion. In that context, is it sensible for the medical experts, who are often a significant part of this process, to be drawn from the same primary care trust as those involved in the cases? Should we not consider whether the doctors and medically qualified people who are essential to the independent process of a coroner’s case should be drawn from a different primary care trust from those involved in the case itself? I raised this—I cannot go into great detail for obvious reasons—in the case of the Mid Staffordshire Hospital, which is deeply concerning. It was a case where a cluster of offences did not clearly emerge, partly because those responsible were all involved in the PCT that was directly under consideration and examination. Last of all, I want to mention—because it has not been mentioned yet and it is important—a ruling made by the European Court of Human Rights, as long ago as 2004, rejecting the blanket ban in Britain against anybody who is a sentenced prisoner having the right to vote. The periods are ludicrously long, up to 10 years for people who are minor offenders. In being so, they destroy the civic responsibilities of those who are in jail. I conclude, on eight minutes, by saying that I very much hope that the Government move forward on what is a judgment of the European Court, dating back to 2004, with still no single act being taken to meet that judgment. A blanket ban is not acceptable and is discouraging of the rehabilitation of offenders. We should look at this again and move rapidly in line with that decision of the European Court, of which we are, after all, respectable signatory partners.