Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Emma Sheerin on 2 June 2026.

MLA

Ms Emma Sheerin

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

2 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5584445

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Minister for that, but the legal briefing that we received from the Department in March 2025 highlighted the importance of the reviewer. The Chief Constable is not independent of the policymaker or those who will carry out the policy, which is the PSNI. The commissioner will be appointed by the Department and must report to the Department. The Scottish commissioner talked about the importance of independence, free from political influence. The Scottish commissioner is appointed by and answerable only to Parliament. There are two concerns there. I am not saying that everything in Scotland is perfect, but we were not able to achieve any clarity around the complete independence of the biometrics commissioner, as you have set out in your proposals thus far. As I have outlined, we have concerns about how the commissioner would carry out their function and how we can ensure their ultimate independence. I will move on to my next point. We feel that the PSNI needs to provide appropriate information to individuals who are having their biometric data taken and retained. When people have been arrested and are going through the biometrics process, information about the process and their rights is unlikely to be at the forefront of their thinking. Therefore, we believe that the PSNI should have a duty to inform those individuals of their rights. Where someone is in that stressful situation, they might not be considering all of those requirements. That is of particular importance, given the recent revelations of illegal surveillance of journalists by the PSNI and its failure to delete material on the back of a court order. Our amendment No 35 would place a duty on the biometrics commissioner to issue guidance that sets out the information that a custody officer should provide in writing to an individual or their solicitor, parent, guardian or appropriate adult before biometric material is obtained. That should include the maximum period for which the material may be retained and the circumstances in which an individual has a right to appeal against a determination to retain data, as well as the procedure for such appeals. That is an important safeguard, and we encourage all Members to support amendment no 35. Finally, I want to touch briefly on the issue of photographs, which my colleague Aoife Finnegan will talk about in greater detail. Along with other Committee colleagues, we are clear that the legislation needs to be future-proofed. Technology moves fast, and existing PSNI practices should be accounted for in the biometrics framework, given that the PSNI already regards as biometric information photographs that have gone through that process. It is a pity that photographs were not included in the Bill, but we welcome the fact that other Members have suggested that they will support the Committee's amendment No 40 on the future addition of photographs as biometric material. I thank them for that.

482 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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