Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I do not want to labour the point but my position changed slightly as I was replying to the Minister's first response to the amendment. I indicated that I would change the wording of the amendment and will do so before Report Stage. Rather than deleting all of the words from and including "if", I will propose the deletion of the words "the Attorney General or the Director". I accept what the Minister said about the need for a filtering mechanism to ensure only cases involving a point of law of exceptional public importance are referred to the Supreme Court. My difficulty is with the lopsided nature of the certifying mechanism, whereby one of the parties, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has the power to certify and the other party, the acquitted person, does not. Given that section 10 decisions are always in favour of the Director of Public Prosecutions, because of the retrial order being made, it is pointless to suggest he might want to appeal. The appeal will be made by the acquitted person; it is wrong, therefore, that only the Director of Public Prosecutions should have power to certify. It should be the court alone which has that power.

The long-standing filtering mechanism, to which the Minster referred, applies to somebody who has been convicted. This relates to a new procedure where a person has been acquitted and a retrial order is made but the retrial has not yet taken place. He or she has to wait for the completion of a second trial and a conviction before being entitled to appeal. Given that there has already been one trial, in which the person concerned has been acquitted, it would be fair to have a more neutral appeals mechanism to the Supreme Court. I accept the existence of a filter but I do not accept a lopsided or unequal filter and I am grateful for the Minister's intention to consider the matter. I call on him not only to consider my original amendment but also to consider the more limited amendment I have proposed, that is, to delete the reference to the Attorney General as a director. I do not understand why he should have the power to certify in this particular instance.