Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Counsel General – in the Senedd at 2:46 pm on 11 October 2017.
I do, and I think the point you make is an extremely important one because it goes to the root of the misunderstanding of the issues of jurisdiction and the divergence between Welsh law and English law. It is not a question of saying who should have the jurisdiction—should it be the UK Parliament, should it be the Welsh Assembly, or whatever; it’s a recognition of what the law actually is and how it interlinks with policy. So, the issues to do with policing, to do with youth justice, to do with prison and probation are not because they are a matter of saying, ‘Wouldn’t it nice to actually have these?’, but because the Assembly has responsibility for that policy, you cannot avoid the consequence of how that interreacts with the justice system itself. It is to actually have an integral relationship between them so that justice policy is then reflected in the justice system itself. I think that is an argument that needs to be explored, and that is why I’m extremely pleased that the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, has accepted the chairmanship of the justice commission that the First Minister is setting up, which I hope will have a broad remit to examine all those areas, not just in terms of jurisdiction but the interrelationship between policy and the law, the interrelationship between what we do and how that impacts on the justice system itself.