Events | 2010.03.23
A-Z of legislation: Coroners and Justice Act 2009
An act delivering \'more effective, transparent and responsive justice and coroner services\'
AIM
"To deliver more effective, transparent and responsive justice and coroner services for victims, witnesses, bereaved families and the wider public."
MAIN PROVISIONS
• Enables the government to suspend an independent inquest into any death in favour of an inquiry, which under the Inquiries Act 2005 can be held in secret .
• Reforms the law on homicide , in particular on partial defences such as diminished responsibility.
• Expands the definition of the offence of assisting suicide.
• Establishes a new sentencing council for England and Wales, with a strengthened remit to promote consistency in sentencing practice.
• Creates a new national coroner service, led by a new chief coroner.
• Enables the courts to pass an indeterminate sentence for public protection for certain terrorist offences.
• Prevents criminals from profiting from publications about their crimes.
• Re-enacts the provisions of the emergency Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act 2008 so that the courts may continue to grant anonymity to vulnerable or intimidated witnesses.
• Allows the courts to grant investigation anonymity orders in certain gun and knife crime cases to prohibit the disclosure of the names of those who have assisted a criminal investigation.
• Extends the use of special measures in criminal proceedings, such as live video links and screens around the witness box, so vulnerable and intimidated witnesses give their best evidence.
• Allows fatal accident inquiries in relation to the death of service personnel abroad to be held in Scotland.
• Criminalises holding another in slavery or servitude or requiring another to perform forced or compulsory labour.
Scraps criminal libel laws , abolishing the common law offences of sedition and seditious, obscene and defamatory libel.
• Strengthens the law so that overseas war criminals visiting or living in the UK can be prosecuted in British courts for acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed after 1990.
BACKGROUND
The coroners and justice bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 14 January 2009, with the widespread expectation that it would revive the plan for so-called "secret inquests", which had been dropped from the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 . The charity Inquest had expressed "serious concerns" about the proposal, which it said could undermine public confidence in deaths involving state agents, such as the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes , and "result in inquests into highly contentious deaths in custody taking place without juries in private, with government-appointed coroners".
Described by justice secretary Jack Straw as the first major reform of the coroners\' service in more than 100 years, the bill contained provisions enabling inquests to be held without a jury in order, it said, to protect the interests of national security, and the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country; to assist in preventing or detecting crime; to protect the safety of a witness or other person; or to prevent real harm to the public interest. The government sought to introduce the concept of "certified investigations" into the inquest system. This would allow the secretary of state to certify that an inquest (including one where a person has died in state custody or at the hands of the state) was to be held without a jury.
The bill also originally contained measures to allow the widespread sharing of personal data across Whitehall departments and throughout the public sector. Clause 152 was designed to introduce a fast-track process to allow ministers to share sensitive data held by the government, individuals or private companies "for any public policy purpose", reversing the data protection principle that information provided to one government agency for one purpose should not normally be used by another for a different purpose.
The clause attracted a diverse collection of critics , including former home secretary David Blunkett, who suggested the provisions needed to be "examined thoroughly" to determine whether the powers were likely to be misused , and in March 2009 the government abandoned its data-sharing plans.
As the report stage began, the extremely tight two-day timetable for debate proposed by the government sparked angry protests from MPs – ministers were accused of showing "reckless disregard for the House of Commons and the proper parliamentary scrutiny of legislation" . Time constraints meant MPs were unable to debate former health secretary Patricia Hewitt\'s amendment to change the law on assisted suicide, the changes to the laws on murder, and free speech concerns over the offence of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation .
Instead, debate focused on the "secret inquest" proposal. Straw made a number of concessions . Nevertheless, Labour\'s John McDonnell denounced the government\'s amendments as a "phenomenon called Strawism\'\' under which a bill was produced that was "so outrageous the house recoils against it\'" and then ministers bring forward amendments so MPs "happily skip through the lobbies" in the belief they have won change. Nineteen Labour MPs rebelled and in May 2009 Straw admitted the provisions did not command the necessary cross-party support and announced the government was abandoning its plans for jury-free inquests.
However, in October, to the fury of campaigners, the government made clear that it intended to use a provision hidden in one of the schedules to the act to effectively terminate independent inquests, replacing them with inquiries under the Inquiries Act 2005 when it so wished, thereby reviving the prospect of secret inquests via the backdoor . The new measures would allow the government to suspend an inquest and instead conduct a secret inquiry into the death. Under the Inquiries Act 2005, the government would be able to restrict the disclosure of documents and withhold parts of the final report of any inquiry. The Lords passed the measures after the government made the smallest of concessions – giving the lord chief justice the power to veto requests for private inquests and to appoint the judge.
Time constraints then forced the government to concede defeat on provisions that would have repealed a free speech clause inserted by the Lords into the offence of incitement to homophobic hatred during the process of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 .
CRITICISM
On the resurresction of the secret inquests provisions, Isabella Sankey, Liberty\'s director of policy, said: "It is thoroughly perverse for a government that has spent over a decade lecturing the public about victims\' rights to attempt to exclude bereaved families from open justice. When will New Labour\'s obsession with secret courts and parallel legal systems end? There is no accountability without transparency." Liberty\'s director Shami Chakrabarti argued: "Whether in Brixton or Basra, those who die on the government\'s watch are entitled to better than this … national security can be protected within the jury system but the political embarrassment of soldiers killed by \'friendly fire\' should never be camouflaged from public view."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]9/jan/19/coroners-justice-bill
