Justice and Home Affairs Committee,
Meeting date: Monday, May 15, 2000
Official Report
232KB pdf
Petitions
Item 1 on the agenda is the two petitions that we have been trying to get round to at the last couple of meetings. We will certainly deal with them today as we have simply put them at the top of the agenda. The first petition is number PE89, from Eileen McBride, to repeal the legislation which allows non-conviction information to be included on an enhanced criminal record certificate. Everyone will have received the clerk's note that was circulated with this petition, as well as the letter dated 28 April 2000 from Mrs McBride. We need to consider what to do about the petition.
As the note from the clerk indicates, the letter from the Minister for Justice raises the possibility of an issue in connection with the European convention on human rights. I certainly think that, regardless of anything else that happens today, we should ask the minister to keep us informed of progress in preparing the code of practice that he refers to.
Do members wish to make any input on this issue? Are there any proposals for taking this matter forward? I am loth to close off discussion of the matter at this stage. If there is a human rights issue, we should at least keep the matter alive. I wonder if it is appropriate to follow one of the options that has been suggested, which is to
"seek other views on the likely implications of the use of these Certificates"
and to ask for views about the wider human rights aspects.
The issue raised in the petition is potentially quite serious. The information that we have would suggest that the likely legal position is less than clear-cut. The situation is therefore unlikely to go away. Either we can deal—or plan to deal—with it now, or it will raise its head at some indeterminate point in the future. We do not want things to pop up unexpectedly, and I think that we should consider this matter. However, I for one am not in a position to make any decision today based on the information that we have received so far. Perhaps we need to take further information on the matter from other parties.
I am interested in the particular point of this petition. We have to satisfy ourselves that there is no contravention either of our existing domestic law or of ECHR. Our law is that someone is innocent until proven guilty. I feel that we need a justification for the enactment of part V of the Police Act 1997. I feel very uncomfortable about this. I am aware that there will be reasons why non-conviction information about an individual would be held, but I would also like us to be satisfied that that does not contravene our law. I am not convinced that we can justify breaching such a fundamental human right as being considered innocent until proven guilty.
Does anyone have anything else to input on this matter?
I propose that, at this point, we write to some other organisations and, at this stage, seek their views in written form. The Scottish Human Rights Centre is one such organisation, and the Law Society for Scotland's criminal law group might be another. We may be able to raise the matter with prominent academics and commentators. I think that we should proceed on that basis at the moment and see what the balance of opinion is. We could then make a decision on whether to take the matter further.
Given that some of the effects of the existing legislation relate to the protection of children, I wonder if it would be useful to talk to some children's organisations about this.
That is a good idea. Does anyone else have any suggestions? We will write to a selection of organisations, canvass views and return to the Minister for Justice, saying that we wish to be kept informed on the code of practice. It may be worth while asking the police to give us their views—although they may retreat to the "We'll do as we're told" line of defence.
The next petition for our attention is PE102 from James Ward. It calls for the Parliament to investigate the alleged illegal sequestration of the petitioner, and invites the committee to consider changes in the law—specifically, to consider the provision of a right of appeal against sequestration orders. I think that I am right in saying that there is, at present, no right of appeal against an award of sequestration, although I think that the person who is subjected to such an order can petition the Court of Session for recall of the award.
I would like to restate the position that the committee has taken before: this committee cannot and should not become involved in rehearsing individual cases. We do not have the right or the locus to do that. We are not a court of further appeal; we cannot and should not have any powers in a judicial capacity. I am not minded that we should change the view, which we have held from the outset, that we should not pursue individual cases.
We can, however, consider the general issue of rights of appeal in sequestration cases. We can also seek information on the current situation and on whether there are any proposals to change it. Following the decision of the Parliament on poindings and warrant sales, the implementation of legislation is likely to be delayed to allow a wider review of the law as it relates to debt. Sequestration would clearly be part of that wider review. It would not be unreasonable for us to write to a number of organisations for general information—along similar lines as we will do with the previous petition. We should seek a range of views on the issue of appealing against sequestration, and we should find out exactly how often sequestration is used.
If no one wants to add anything to that, we will proceed by gathering written evidence until we see whether sequestration will come under the overall debt review. Once we have that evidence, we can bring this issue back on to our agenda.