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Mrs Naomi Long: Assembly records
All of Mrs Naomi Long’s imported questions, contributions and motions in this mandate, newest first, including those assessed as not flagged, uncertain or not yet analysed.
The Member may not be familiar with article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNHR) or article 9 of the ECHR, which make it quite clear that freedom of religion and belief and freedom of conscience are intertwined. Therefore, your freedom of belief and my freedom of belief, in terms of our religious…
Just to be clear, I still do not believe that they are necessary, but I also do not believe that they are harmful. If they provide the reassurance needed to get the vagrancy law repealed, they are worth accepting on that basis.
I share the Member's respect for faith traditions. As a Christian, I believe that it is right and proper that we should be able to discuss and practise our faith openly in the public domain and that it should not have to be hidden away. I disagree with the Member, however, in that I believe that people also have a…
I thank the Member for giving way. I want to offer assurance to the Member and other members of the Committee that the amendment will not cut across our work to protect children or vulnerable adults who have been coerced into committing a crime; nor will it limit the ability to refer those who have been coerced to the…
I thank the Member for giving way. I disagree with the previous intervention: we are not comparing apples and pears. The fact that blasphemy laws are on the books here is held up as an example by other countries whose blasphemy laws are more draconian and are regularly used to persecute those who dissent by having…
I thank the Member for that assurance. On that basis, I am happy to support both amendments. Particularly, those that bring the civil orders into line and explicitly mention the impact of not only companion animals but other domesticated and farm animals is a really important piece of work. I am happy to work closely…
I appreciate the point that my colleague has raised, and I wanted to shine a bit more light on the support that is available. DOJ has a support contract with Belfast and Lisburn Women's Aid (BLWA) for female adult victims who consent to entering the national referral mechanism (NRM). The Department of Health has lead…
I thank the Member for giving way. He mentioned the case of Caitlin Hanna, in which, I think, a total of 11 women were being trafficked and made available for prostitution and abuse by a gang of men here. Sadly, two of them died. One of the survivors, Rebecca, spoke very powerfully at recent events. When you hear the…
I thank the Member for giving way. It is just to say that the PSNI has also indicated that, when the amendments pass and the repeal happens, it will go on to provide guidance to officers on the application of the law and give them assistance when it comes to how it will be implemented in practice to avoid situations…
I beg to move amendment No 45: Amendment Nos 45 to 48 create two new offences: participating in the criminal activities of an organised crime group and directing the criminal activities of an organised crime group. Specifically, the proposed provisions are intended to create specific legislation for prosecuting an…
I want to speak to the amendments in group 2 as they relate to the different Parts of the Bill. I will begin with amendment Nos 41 to 43, which were tabled by the Chair of the Committee for Justice. I am content to support the Committee's amendments, which introduce the inclusion of a child's vulnerabilities as a…
This is a very technical point. As I said, those are expert witnesses. This is an efficient way to do business, in that it allows them to be more available to the court without having to cancel days of their normal work environment in order to make themselves available. They are able to attend court remotely, and they…
I am grateful that the Member has read out that list. It is a list of organisations or individuals that are expert witnesses. They are on that list because an expert witness will often have to give evidence at multiple trials in many places many times. The idea is to give that presumption because they are expert…
The question of whether a judge finds someone in contempt is to do with their conduct in the trial. It has nothing to do with live links. People are regularly held in contempt of court when they are there in person. What is key to note is that, to date, there has been no example of a case that has been overturned on…
Part of the reason is that what was designed in this, both for custody and for use in the courts, does not simply replicate the emergency provisions of the Coronavirus Act, although it does that. It brings together a lot of provisions, some dating back some time, about the use of live links in courts and for remote…
The fundamental point here is that they were designed for people who are 14 and above in recognition that children, as they grow up, are more competent to understand the consequences of their actions. The evidence and advice is that, below the age of 14, they are not competent to do so, which is why we avoid custody,…
The Member is actually making a really strong case for why it should not apply to under-14s. If over-14s are coercing young people to get involved in criminal activity, it protects them from being criminalised and, instead, treats them as they ought to be treated: as the victims of trafficking.