NI Justice Minister urged to change rules requiring female officers to conduct intimate searches of males after Supreme Court sex ruling
Stormont’s justice minister has been urged to change her department’s policy on strip searches – which currently allows men who identify as women the right to be searched by female officers.
Naomi Long has declined to answer questions on whether she will change the rules – which also allow male officers to strip search women – in light of a landmark Supreme Court ruling on sex.
A spokesperson said the minister “will carefully consider any potential implications” of the judgement.
Members of the public undergoing intimate searches by police officers have a right to be searched by someone of the same sex. The Department of Justice (DoJ) currently advises police that male officers or detainees are to be treated as their birth sex, unless they have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
However, last week’s ruling by the UK’s highest court stated that under UK equality law, sex is defined at birth and cannot be changed by a GRC.
The current DoJ policy means that female officers would have to conduct strip searches of men who identify as women, so long as they possess the relevant paperwork stating that they are female.
Ulster Unionist justice spokesperson Doug Beattie says the department’s policy is “no longer tenable” and says Mrs Long must “ensure female police officers are not forced to conduct intimate searches of men who identify as women”.
He said: “This is not a case for the Policing Board or a slippery response stating it is an operational matter, this is a case of Department of Justice policy and therefore sits in the Justice Ministers in-tray”.
The Upper Bann MLA said the policy must be reviewed – and the PSNI must “remove notice of a GRC giving authority to search someone of the opposite sex”.
DoJ policy states that “a search or other procedure….may only be carried out or observed by a person of the same sex as the detainee”.
However, it says that “In law, the gender (and accordingly the sex) of an individual is their gender as registered at birth unless they have been issued with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA), in which case the person's gender is their acquired gender”.
A day after the ruling, the British Transport Police said that it had adopted a new “interim position” which will see trans people held in custody strip searched by an officer in line with their birth sex.
A week on from the Supreme Court judgement on what a woman is, there has been little progress at Stormont in clarifying what it will mean in Northern Ireland.
Individual departments have responsibility for various relevant pieces of legislation, with a number of ministers currently seeking legal advice on what it means for their policies.
For example, the Department of Finance has responsibility for the Gender Recognition Certificate process – whereby people can legally change their sex for certain purposes.
But legislation on sex discrimination sits under the Department of Communities, while the Executive Office has a broader remit over equality matters.
Despite the Supreme Court’s sex judgment concerning only the Equality Act in England, Scotland and Wales, it said that the effect of the Gender Recognition Act on the many other statutes that refer to men and women “must be carefully considered in the light of the wording, context and policy of the statute in question”.
In light of the Supreme Court judgement that under the law, people are their natal sex - regardless of a GRC – The News Letter asked Minister Long:
- if the Department of Justice has suspended its current policy
- if the justice minister is comfortable with the situation today, which allows officers who are not the same sex as the detainee to conduct strip searches, and;
- if she is content with a policy which may force female officers to strip search males who identify as females (with or without a GRC) - including individuals who may be sex offenders?
A departmental spokesperson said: “The recent ruling by the Supreme Court is a detailed and important judgment. The Department of Justice will carefully consider any potential implications, including for the department’s responsibilities under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.”