Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Ann Clwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 2, page 100, line 10, leave out clause 152.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 154, page 100, line 17, at end insert—

‘(a) A specialist unit shall be established within the Crown Prosecution Service, reporting to the Director of Public Prosecutions, so as to ensure minimal delay in decisions relating to arrest warrants issued under this section.

(b) A specialist unit shall be established within the Metropolitan Police so as to ensure minimal delay in the issuing of arrest warrants under this section.’.

[Ann Clwyd]

The amendment would remove clause 152. At the outset, I should like to say that whatever one’s views on the changes proposed by the clause, it should not be part of the Bill. It is a justice measure in a Home Office Bill, which is already packed. It would be better if the Government had not crow-barred it into the Bill. However, I am glad that we have an opportunity to debate the measure, although we cannot debate it to the extent that other Members and I would have liked.

The Government propose to change the law on the procedure for obtaining an arrest warrant in a private prosecution in a universal jurisdiction case. Such cases are concerned with the gravest crimes against humanity: war crimes, torture, genocide and so on. The Government propose that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions should be required before any such arrest warrant can be issued.

My area of interest is human rights, so it is on the human rights implications of the clause that I shall focus. I object to the clause and the Government’s proposals because they will undermine the UK’s standing on international human rights issues. The current situation in Libya and recent events there and elsewhere in north Africa and the middle east provide a helpful context for the debate. For example, if anyone from Gaddafi’s regime—his sons or other senior political and military cohorts—tries to visit the UK at some point in future, they will be affected by this change in the law.

The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers have been strong in their condemnation of Gaddafi, in their calls for him to face justice, and in their support for the International Criminal Court investigation. I agree with them. The best place for Gaddafi to end up is in front of a court on an ICC indictment for crimes against humanity. However, the existence of the ICC does not absolve us of responsibility to ensure that those most serious of crimes can be prosecuted within our jurisdiction.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the current situation is the best one, because it keeps the Government away from allegations of political bias in cases in which arrests are sought for a court in this country? Clause 152 will bring every prosecution into the political orbit, where it certainly should not be.

[Ann Clwyd]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head as usual, and I shall develop that argument in a few minutes.

We still have obligations under the Geneva conventions —they are obligations, and not discretions or permissions —to bring before a court persons suspected of committing the gravest crimes against humanity when we are able to do so. This change in the law will undermine our commitment to those Geneva convention obligations.

Why, then, are the Government seeking to change the law? The Justice Secretary, yesterday, and the Foreign Secretary, last Thursday, set out clearly in replies to questions in the Chamber the reasons why the Government are seeking to do so. The first reason that they gave was that it is too easy to obtain an arrest warrant. They suggested that anyone could turn up on a frivolous pretext, spin a yarn to the court and walk away with an arrest warrant—put a penny in the slot and out comes a warrant! I cannot believe that that argument has carried any weight with anyone at all.

[Dr Huppert]

I share the right hon. Lady’s deep interest in human rights and I absolutely accept her point. May I, however, go back to what she was saying earlier about the arrest process? Does not she accept that a prosecution is more important than an arrest, and that whether or not the clause is passed, the Attorney-General’s consent will still be required for a prosecution, making the issue a political one? Are we not having the wrong debate? Should not we be debating the Attorney-General’s role in private prosecutions?

[Ann Clwyd]

That is certainly a subject for future debate. I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he said in Committee:

“I am not persuaded that there is a need for change…I do not think that a sufficiently strong case has been made about why the current system is not working.”––[Official Report, Police Reform and Social Responsibility Public Bill Committee, 17 February 2011; c. 684.]

I hope that he still holds that view.

[Mr Llwyd]

On the question of granting a warrant on the basis of flimsy evidence, is the right hon. Lady aware that, according to the Director of Public Prosecutions, there have been only 10 applications in the past 10 years, of which only two were granted?

[Ann Clwyd]

That was to have been my very next point. It is amazing that in the past 10 years, there have been just two successful applications for arrest warrants, and that they were then either withdrawn or not acted on.

[Michael Ellis]

Does not that 80% failure rate indicate that people have been making frivolous and vexatious applications? Also, is it not right that proper evidence should be tendered to a court or other authority before the issue of an arrest warrant that could have international ramifications?

[Ann Clwyd]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware of the facts. The fact that there have been 10 applications and that only two were granted means that the judges who currently implement this legislation are absolutely spot on. They do not take frivolous applications—quite the contrary: they are only too careful. They are experienced judges, not ordinary magistrates. The current system works comparatively well, and no one can point to any frivolous applications.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend might be aware that a document issued by the Liberal Democrats in June last year stated:

“The issue of the arrest warrant for a war crime is decided only by specialist legally qualified magistrates such as the most senior district judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. They are well qualified to decide whether the high threshold of evidence, liability and jurisdiction has been met and that no immunity applies…The removal of the right of public prosecution in such cases would have the effect of turning our country into a safe transit point for war criminals, torturers and those guilty of genocide from all over the world.”

[Ann Clwyd]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Indeed, all the human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Redress and Justice are opposed to this change in the law.

In Committee, the Minister conceded:

“The problem is not that large numbers of warrants are being issued—the Government are aware of only two”.––[Official Report, Police Reform and Social Responsibility Public Bill Committee, 17 February 2011; c. 682.]

It is incredible that the Government think that that is too many, and that there should be rather fewer. The fact that two arrest warrants have been granted in 10 years should be a matter of concern, not because it is too many but because it is too few.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree with my right hon. Friend that war crimes and crimes against humanity are horrific, but does she really think it just that an arrest warrant was issued against Tzipi Livni who was here seriously to negotiate peace between Israelis and Palestinians and to save lives?

[Ann Clwyd]

Well, the other reason the Government gave for the change in the law is, I suppose, the real reason, in respect of which my hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head: it is the Tzipi Livni case. The Government, as the Foreign Secretary and the Justice Secretary explained, are changing the law because of an Israeli politician. Changing the law at the request of a foreign Government does not, I would argue, enhance our ability to act as an international peace broker. It does exactly the opposite by undermining our credibility to speak as a country that takes human rights seriously.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it not incongruous that at the same time as we continue to speak here about human rights, justice and democracy in the middle east, we also have to move this particular amendment?

[Ann Clwyd]

Indeed. I think it sends the wrong signal at this particular time. I hope I can persuade many more hon. Members of the force of my argument.

In today’s The Guardian online, there is an article, stating that coalition criminal justice plans

“make a mockery of universal jurisdiction”.

It continues:

“Giving suspects from ‘protected countries’ immunity from war crimes arrests would turn the UK into a safe haven for suspects”.

That was written by an eminent human rights lawyer, Daniel Machower. He goes on to say:

“A legal case for changing the current judicial process, through the senior district judge, has not been made out and parliament is entitled to reject the proposed change on that basis alone.”

I have my own views on the Tzipi Livni case. I happen to regard the crimes documented in the Goldstone report as pretty damning. The very strength of the current system, however, is that it does not matter what my view is: it is a decision taken by a court without political considerations and on the basis of the evidence alone. That is the system that the Government are going to undermine.

[Mr Offord]

The right hon. Lady claims that accusations against an individual are mentioned in the Goldstone report, but she also talks about people having immunity in this country. What evidential basis does she have for presuming to believe that to be true?

[Ann Clwyd]

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about—and I doubt whether he does either.

The Opposition Front-Bench team has tabled an amendment proposing to create new units in the Crown Prosecution Service and the Metropolitan police. As the Minister observed in Committee, however, these units already exist for war crimes investigations. The fact that they already exist, and have done for some time, helps to show us what will happen when the Director of Public Prosecutions becomes a gatekeeper for all universal jurisdiction cases: nothing. Yes, nothing will happen. As we learned from a report in The Guardian last month and the work of the all-party group on the prevention of genocide, nearly 400 war criminals are believed to be in the UK right now—from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and the Congo. How many prosecutions have there been? One—just one, which is the Zardad case.

I conclude here because this is the core of my case. The clause is important because it communicates our attitude towards crimes against humanity and towards international justice.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend allow me to intervene?

[Ann Clwyd]

I am concluding; I am sorry.

It is already too hard to try to bring war criminals to justice. Sadly, there are already too few prosecutions. Let us not make it even harder.

[Michael Ellis]

It might be useful to inject some legal realism into the debate. At present the law in England and Wales provides for no real evidential threshold, and contains no requirement for a prosecutor to check the credibility of a claim before an arrest warrant is issued. In other words, all that is required is for an individual to go into a police station or the equivalent and make an allegation. That allegation amounts to a prima facie case: the establishment of a prime facie case is the smallest burden that must be borne. Attention-seeking lawyers and campaign groups are being given an opportunity to use the arrest warrant process as a campaign tool. To describe it as providing immunity from prosecution is completely wrong in law, in fact and in degree, and if newspapers have described it thus they are simply wrong.