Here we go again. It only seems ten minutes since I was exasperated by the Damian Green affair, specifically the way MPs, media and blogs all focused quite wrongly on the extremely lawful and proper search of Damian Green’s Westminster office, while ignoring the highly improper arrest of the MP and the civil servant who leaked to him. Well, now we have another MP complaining about the police entering his office and “searching” for a document. Give me strength.
It’s difficult to be absolute without knowing the full facts, of course. But my reaction to the BBC report is to think this is a storm in a teacup, and that Daniel Kawczynski risks making a fool of himself. The police may well have committed an offence in the world of spin; but in substance I’m far from convinced they’ve done anything wrong.
First, nothing in the report suggests to me that any search has taken place. What the police did – and according to the BBC website they say they were Westminster Palace police (who obviously are allowed in… to protect MPs) they say they did by appointment. They seem to have arrived at his office, stood talking to his staff, and to have asked for documents. Then when he arrived the MP gave them to them. What’s all the fuss about? No search was conducted; so obviously no warrant was needed to authorise a search. Is it suddenly wrong for the police to do things by consent and presuming law-abiding citizens will cooperate with them? Is it suddenly wrong to cooperate with the police? Apparently so, as Daniel Kawczynski had a subsequent crisis of conscience about it.
I reckon going for a warrant would have been massively disproportionate as a search wasn’t needed, and it would have wasted the courts’ time. Indeed, has I been the magistrate I don’t think I’d have granted a warrant. I’d have said the police should just ask – as they did. It really has come to something if MPs think every time the police need a document from them, they should mount a full search under a warrant.
I wish people would stop this warrants nonsense. At another place I wrote about Greengate and quoted Trouble-All from Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, but perhaps he could do with being quoted again:
Trouble-all: Have you any warrant for this, Gentlemen?
Quarlous,
Winwife: Ha!
Trouble-all: There must be a warrant had, beleeue it.
Winwife: For what?
Trouble-all: For whatsoeuer it is, any thing indeede, no matter what.
I’m afraid MPs and commentators are beginning to sound a lot like that.
My reaction on reading this on the bbc site was that this is a completely transparent attempt at getting some political milage out of a innocuous non event.
I just googled his name to see if he’s got previous and this post is already #10 google ranking. Quick work!
Excellent! And thanks. I’m glad you agree with me.
Unless the document in question was the only piece of paper in the office, and in plain view (unlikely), how can it not have been a “search” by someone, at the behest of the Police ?
What about “Mr Speaker’s Protocol on the execution of a search warrant in the precincts of the House of Commons” ?
[…]
5. In cases where the police wish to search within Parliament, a warrant must be obtained and any decision relating to the execution of that warrant must be referred to me.
[…]
8. Any search of a Member’s office or belongings will only proceed in the presence of the Serjeant at Arms, Speaker’s Counsel or their deputies. The Speaker may attach conditions to such a search which require the police to describe to a senior parliamentary official the nature of any material being seized which may relate to a Member’s parliamentary work and may therefore be covered by parliamentary privilege. In the latter case, the police shall be required to sign an undertaking to maintain the confidentiality of that material removed, until such time as any issue of privilege has been resolved.
9. If the police remove any document or equipment from a Member’s office, they will be required to treat any data relating to individual constituents with the same degree of care as would apply in similar circumstances to removal of information about a client from a lawyer’s office.
Or is Speaker Martin’s Protocol without any force in law within the Palace of Westminster ?
If Parliamentary Privilege is involved, how can the document be of any use as evidence in a Court ?
Individual MPs do not have the right to waive Parliamentary Privilege themselves, except where the Defamation Act 1996 applies (which allowed Neil Hamilton to give evidence in Court in a libel case).
What makes you say the letter was subject to Parliamentary privilege, WTWU? I’ll agree it is if you can quote chapter and verse as to what privilege applies, and how.
If a policeman asks you for something and you give it, he has not conducted a search of your home. That’s obvious. To search means you search, not that you ask.
And as for the Speaker’s protocol, I mean no disrespect but it doesn’t have the force of law at all, no. It’s not the law. As for the para. 9 you quote, well, it’s about documents seized in a search, which this was not.
But it’s also worth mentioning for the benefit of anyone tempted to obsess about imaginary privileges that the paragraph quite clearly envisages that the police can properly seize documents relating to individual constituents. It doesn’t suggest any privilege applies or that the police can’t take it.