Page 2210 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012
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At the middle level of the scale are offences other than minor offences, which are dealt with in section 9A. For these offences there is still an entitlement to bail, however the entitlement is not granted if the court is satisfied that a refusal is justified when the factors listed in sections 22 and 23 are considered. The factors listed in sections 22 and 23 list the key considerations to be taken into account. First is the likelihood of the person reappearing in court at a later date, second is the likelihood of the person committing another offence while on bail or interfering with evidence and third is the interests of the person.
The highest section of the scale is referred to—this is the hierarchy of the seriousness of crimes I referred to earlier—as “murder and certain serious drug offences”. For these alleged crimes there is no presumption in favour of bail. In these circumstances the court is directed by the legislation to not grant bail unless there are proven special or exceptional circumstances in favour of bail being granted. The court is then further directed to consider section 22 and section 23 and the factors contained therein as a second question before granting bail.
I note the ongoing dialogue that is occurring regarding compatibility of this part of the legislation with the Human Rights Act, and the attorney has referred to this today. I look forward to that dialogue continuing because it is a real and tangible benefit of our Human Rights Act and certainly a difficult point where those two considerations have come together. Given that quick thumbnail sketch of the Bail Act, it is clear that the legislation asks the courts to take a robust approach to bail considerations. It is certainly not a one-size-fits-all approach, and that is, of course, appropriate given the myriad different circumstances that come before the court on an almost daily basis.
Turning to Mrs Dunne’s motion, as I read it, the crux of what the motion asks for is data on the number of people who commit further crimes while on bail. The attorney has advised that his directorate do not have this data in an easily usable format and that its retrieval from the court records would require a manual search that would take a large amount of time. It is an unfortunate situation where justice-related data is not easily accessible, and I am reminded of the debate the Assembly had last year about sentencing generally and a review of the sentencing act more generally. Members may recall during that debate that it emerged that the government do not readily have access to data on what sentences are being imposed by the courts. Members may also recall that the government are investigating ways that they may be able to capture and report that data.
This is a continuing theme—a lack of data from the justice system—which I find very concerning and which we keep seeming to come back to in this place. I think that is unfortunate because it makes it much harder for us to actually debate the substance of these matters. Mrs Dunne at the beginning of her remarks talked about breaches of bail being a regular problem—regular breaches of bail and regular non-enforcement. She is obviously speaking from examples she has seen in the press or which have been reported to her. That may or may not be the case. I am sure there are instances, but what is difficult to know because of a lack of data is how widespread this problem is. Is it a handful of high profile cases? Do we have a more systemic problem? These are the very important questions we need to understand to enable the Assembly to
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