Liberty - Protecting civil liberties, promoting human rights
Lawyers' Petition
Lawyers' Petition
Over 700 of the country's leading lawyers - including 40 QCs - have signed Liberty's petition condemning the Justice and Security Bill and Government plans to introduce Secret Courts into ordinary civil law.
The petition urges Minister without portfolio Kenneth Clarke to abandon the dangerous and unnecessary plans.
Among growing opposition to the Bill there have been a number of notable critics.
Reverend Nicholas Mercer (former lieutenant colonel) said: "The Justice and Security Bill has one principle aim and that is to cover up UK complicity in rendition and torture. The Bill is an affront to the open justice on which this country rightly prides itself and, above all, it is an affront to human dignity.
"The fact that some of those individuals who are complicit in rendition and torture can, not only assist in the drafting of the Bill but also vote to cover their tracks, is a Constitutional scandal. It is little wonder that the Bill has been heavily criticised by the UN Rapporteur on Torture and condemned by the vast majority of lawyers and human rights organisations in this country.”
Dinah Rose QC, a former Special Advocate (the Government-appointed lawyers who would appear in the secret hearings should the Bill pass) said: “Closed material procedures are alien to British justice and will distort civil trials beyond recognition. What may look and sound like a trial is in fact nothing of the sort.
"Judges will be asked to decide cases on the basis of ‘secret evidence’ that would not withstand legal challenge and hand down judgments in secret. This Bill is a dangerous perversion of our national legal system and will undermine constitutional rights.”
If passed, the
Government’s Justice and Security Bill will extend controversial Closed Material
Procedures (CMP) to the ordinary civil law. Part 2 of the Bill allows Ministers
to trigger this secret court procedure when defending claims which may engage
‘national security’ - limiting public scrutiny of the Government, our security
services and public bodies. Part 2 will also oust the court’s jurisdiction to
hear Norwich
Pharmacal applications for certain disclosure.
Liberty believes Part 2 of this Bill is contrary to the Rule of Law and should not be brought into force. Secret courts erode core principles of our civil justice system including the right to a fair trial, equality of arms and open justice. They will fatally undermine the court room as an independent and objective forum in which allegations of wrongdoing can be fairly tested and where the Government can be transparently held to account.
This bill has emerged from the darkest corners of the ‘War on Terror’ – but rather than shedding more light on what should be anomalous cases the Government is choosing to shroud key parts of sensitive cases in even more secrecy.
The Special Advocates, on whose co-operation this Bill rests, have described Part 2 as “inherently unfair and contrary to the common law tradition”. They have been clear that the Bill is not required and that the Government has made no case for it. Indeed the Government has been unable to point to one case where the current law to prevent harmful disclosure of sensitive information – the law of Public Interest Immunity – has failed to protect our national security.