Detention of Jagtar Singh Johal

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I commend the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) for securing the debate and for his advocacy on behalf of his constituent. There is a great deal that I could say about this case, but time is short. I will limit myself to three brief points.

First, I understand the concerns that the Minister will have with regard to the apparent interference in the criminal justice system of another sovereign state. That is well rehearsed; it is not new territory for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. However, I bring to his attention the quite remarkable and wholly inappropriate briefing note circulated to Members of this House today; it was brought to the Deputy Speaker’s attention by the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire. I gently suggest to the Minister that it demonstrates, in the way in which it is constructed—both in terms of its highly misleading and inaccurate content and how it strays into discussion of the procedure and indeed substance of the case against Jagtar Singh Johal—that in fact the Indian Government themselves do not have great regard for the propriety of the independence of their own criminal justice system. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when he formulates his own position with regard to it.

Secondly, the absolutely most crucial point, made by the hon. Member, is that Jagtar Singh Johal has been the subject of very strong prima facie arbitrary detention. As has been made clear by counsel instructed by Reprieve and Redress in the briefing they provided for Members today, this is caught by categories 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the guidance produced by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. I was in legal practice myself for long enough to know that lawyers can come to different conclusions, so if the advice given or the conclusions drawn by the Minister and his staff are different, I hope he will explain exactly where these differences come from.

Thirdly, Jagtar’s position is undoubtedly grim, but he is actually in a much better position than just about everybody I have ever campaigned for and worked with when they were facing the death penalty, because he has not yet been through the judicial process. I have looked at just about every death penalty case I have ever been part of and thought, “Dear God, if only we had got to this at first instance.” We are well ahead of that point at the moment. The Government should be implementing their own policy with regard to arbitrary detention. They have rightly done it for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and others often enough. Why are they not doing it for Jagtar?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Adams]

What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that we have consistently raised the need for an independent and impartial investigation into those torture allegations. The Foreign Secretary himself most recently highlighted this to Indian Minister of External Affairs Jaishankar on 6 May, and we have made many representations in this case. Officials or Ministers have raised Mr Johal’s case on almost 70 occasions.

I appreciate, however, that there are calls for the British Government to do more in Mr Johal’s case. I would therefore like to reassure the House that ever since his arrest in India in 2017, our staff have worked hard to provide effective assistance to Mr Johal and his family in the UK. We take these allegations about torture and mistreatment incredibly seriously. The allegations go back to 2017 and were made again in January this year. There are causes for concern in Mr Johal’s case, and we also share right hon. and hon. Members’ deep concern about the continued delays in the legal proceedings against Mr Johal.

[Mr Carmichael]

I accept everything that the Minister has said about interventions with regard to the Indian criminal justice system. That is why the point about arbitrary detention is so important, because as the spokesperson for the official Opposition, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) have both said, in the event that that is the view of the Government, they have a duty to intervene. Is that the view of the Government, and if it is, why have they not intervened? If it is not, what points of distinction would they make?