Downing Street Says » Criminal Justice System

Asked about the Chancellor’s role in ensuring our security, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he was not aware of the reference because it was a party event. However, the fact of the matter was that the Treasury had always had a role in providing the funds for security. The Prime Minister often praised the role of the Chancellor in sustaining a strong economy and it was frequently part of what the Prime Minister said that the Treasury had provided the funds needed for security.

Asked when the Prime Minister had made his conclusion that the criminal justice system was the worst performing public service, the PMOS said that if journalists went back over many of the Prime Minister’s speeches they would see that he had repeatedly said that the criminal justice system, in his view, was the department in government which was "least fit" for purpose of any department. That was a view he had made repeatedly in recent years. Equally, just because you put forward proposals in one area did not mean that you had not made progress in other areas. A frequent theme of the Prime Minister’s had been that he viewed the criminal justice system as least fit for purpose in addition alongside the underlying theme of rebalancing the system more in favour of the community as a whole rather than the individual. In terms of recent events that had taken on a particular form in relation to human rights and so on but it had been a recurring theme throughout.

Put that last August the Prime Minister had talked about amending the Human Rights Act whereas today he had talked about interpretation and was there a difference, the PMOS said that the question was open ended: why did we have a problem with interpretation of our human rights legislation and the convention when other European countries, who were also signatories of the convention, who had their own human rights legislation, did not. The important thing was that the Home Office did the work between now and June. Then we would see where we had got to.

Asked if it was a requirement of EU membership to be signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the PMOS said that you needed to first ask yourself why other countries saw no contradiction between being signatories of the ECHR, as this country had been for many many decades, and getting the balance right between the individual and the community. Therefore the question to be asked was why did we have these problems of interpretation in this country. You needed to answer that first and foremost. Put that Lord Falconer had said that the ECHR was a condition of EU membership, the PMOS said that he was not a lawyer so he took things at a common sense level. The common sense question before you addressed big fundamental questions like that, was why did we have problems when other countries, such as France, did not.

Asked where we were with Memorandums of Understandings, the PMOS said to check with the Foreign Office, as he understood there had been progress with Algeria in recent days.

Asked if there was any antipathy from the judiciary to the Labour Government, the PMOS said that the question was party political. The important thing was to ask the question he had outlined and then see where it lead you and not pre-empt the outcome. Asked why the Prime Minister had not just asked his wife, the PMOS said that he paid tribute to ITN’s instinct to personalise every story, but in this case the government would take an overview.

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» Monday, May 15, 2006

Criminal Justice System

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