Last week, lawyers for the police were partly successful in pushing a case concerning what has been described as the "sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners for social justice... by undercover police officers" into a secret tribunal, from which little if any evidence of just how this was allowed to happen will emerge.
For now, that is not the end of the story - the judge ruled that although part of the case, brought by women who say they were deceived into having sex with undercover police officers, will be heard by the intensely secretive Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), this will be followed by an open hearing in the High Court.
However, should the government's plans for a vast roll-out of secret courts across the civil justice system pass parliament, it will be a very different story in future. The women bringing these allegations - described by the judge as "very serious" - would likely find themselves faced with the choice of the secret tribunal on the one hand and a secret court on the other.
Neither would allow them to challenge the case presented by the authorities, or to even hear the evidence which is used against them; should they lose their claim - which becomes much more likely in a system where the odds are stacked in the government's favour - they would never know why; and of course, both press and public would be left in the dark about just what our law enforcement and security services had been getting up to in our name.
Ministers may claim that the plans for secret courts - known as Closed Material Procedures (CMPs) - currently before Parliament would apply to only a tiny number of cases, concerned with 'national security.' Yet this is a nebulous term which the government refuses to define and which is known to have been misused to cover up embarrassment in the past. It is all too easy to see how the activities and techniques of the police could be claimed to have a bearing on 'national security', and therefore require the doors of the courtroom to be shut.
Moreover, the Kafkaesque claims made by police lawyers in this week's case - that they could not have a fair trial unless the other side was excluded altogether - are eerily similar to the claims currently being advanced by Ken Clarke in support of the secret courts bill. It is worth emphasising just how dangerously wrong-headed such claims are: the state is in effect saying that it is unfair to the state if they are not handed a massive advantage over their opponent. This takes the form of being allowed to kick the other side out of a closed courtroom, meaning that while the state can challenge the evidence brought forward by the citizen, the citizen cannot challenge or even hear the evidence brought forward by the state.
The potential spread of the new rash of secret courts would - by Ken Clarke's own admission - not stop at cases involving the security services. Questioned in Parliament, Mr Clarke was forced to admit that secret courts could also be used in cases where soldiers' families brought cases against the MoD for negligence resulting in the death of a loved one; he also refused to rule out that they could be used in cases where the government faced embarrassment over corrupt arms deals.
This week's case has demonstrated that the desire for secret courts - which would represent a license to cover-up government embarrassment - is widespread among state authorities. For now, the civil courts represent a last safeguard to ensure ministers and officials can be brought to book for any abuses they carry out. But should the Secret Courts Bill pass Parliament in the coming months, this last redoubt will be lost. MPs must not nod through these plans which would not only destroy our centuries-old traditions of fair and equal justice, but would in effect put the government above the law.
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I joined the Lib Dems to protect the citizens of this country against secret or closed courts.
They have gone and said, well because of terrorism....
What the police did was reprehensible and should be sorted in open court. The people who were infiltrated are known to be aggressive in the pursuit of their cause, but they hardly are on the same level as the suicide bomber.
There no longer seems to be an reason to vote Lib Dem. I'm not going to bother next time because Labour have supported this as well.
They'll first go for the most sickeningly ruthless, authoritarian regime they can muster. They know it won't work, not outright, so they'll then sell it as "compromise..harmonize....over-haul". They'll force this propaganda down people's throats so many times enough people will be fall for it. In the end, you'll see an amended bill, but nonetheless a bill that was conceived by design rather than by the people and for the people these clowns claim to represent.
We will not, and should not, tolerate being told by our public servants, that we are less trustworthy than they. They swore to protect our freedoms and rights under the law, we should settle for nothing less.
mean we may never discover who won that early morning tennis match between Barack and Dave. Non-transparency about something so insignificant, doesn’t bode well.
"sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners for social justice”
Presumably an investigation branch sent up to emulate the mould-breaking efforts of Sir Jim.
“women who say they were deceived into having sex with undercover police officers”
could perhaps record future conversations. In which they ask their companion if they are part of the constabulary. Then, if it comes to court. They can enquire if an officer so readily prepared to deceive, would provide evidence that could be relied on.
“government's plans for a vast roll-out of secret courts”
may inadvertently serve in the office of the camel’s straw. Time will tell.
“where the odds are stacked in the government's favour”
having the temerity to call it a democracy, is surely resorting to rubbing-salt.
“both press and public would be left in the dark”
Unless it could be turned into a best-selling book and Hollywood blockbuster. In which only the facts had been suppressed, to protect a rogue regime.
“a nebulous term which the government refuses to define”
See, Star Chamber. That circumstance when a monarch would normally reprise the role of rallying point. If the armed forces/citizen reserve, were still in existence.
“embarrassment in the past”
No wonder there's no need for statutory press control.
“government above the law.”
Next, MP pay rises/limo lanes?
Every judge, unless he is a bad judge, knows that the right thing to do is to apply the oft-repeated saying of Lord Chief Justice Hewart in R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy: “It is not merely of some importance, but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done”.
Only a despot would seek to remove our traditional right, if accused of a crime, which upon conviction will result in the loss of our liberty, or property, we have a proven and irrevocable right, to demand a hearing by our peers, the randomly selected jury. The jury whose role is not to uphold the law, but to protect us against tyranny by misuse of it, by government. The jury, our judges, have the power to nullify bad law, by refusing to convict. The power to consider whether the accused's actions, under the circumstances, were reasonable and if so acquit, even if the law had been broken.
Judges and lawyers have no such authority and are barred from placing the law in dispute. Judges and politicians want secret courts to hide their deeds. We should sack them.
Judges do not want secret courts. Politicians want secret courts. If judges wanted secret courts. Lord Hewart would never have said what he said.