Tag Archives: Justice and Security Bil

Jo Shaw asks… Is there a way out of the Secret Courts mess?

It’s a strange and rare thing for a Liberal Democrat to be pinning her hopes for a civil liberties victory on a combination of government bad faith, Conservatives of principle voting the right way and Labour sticking to their guns. Yet that combination, combined with the votes of Lib Dem MPs, could offer a lifeline for those campaigning to defeat secret courts contained in the Justice and Security Bill.

The Bill is now in Committee in the Commons. At the last possible moment the government published its proposed amendments to the Bill. The government line is that these amendments clarify the …

Posted in News | Also tagged | 17 Comments

The Independent View: National security is paramount but ‘secret courts’ are an illiberal attack on British justice

Supreme Court - Some rights reserved by cphoffman42In September 2012, the Liberal Democrat Conference voted overwhelmingly against the most contentious aspect of the government’s Justice and Security Bill – the extension of ‘secret courts’, otherwise known as Closed Material Procedures (CMPs), into civil courts.

This would allow ministers to submit a CMP application to a judge that material relating to national security be withheld from the defendant/claimant and their legal team despite being used as evidence. As Andrew Tyrie MP and Anthony Peto QC explain in “Neither Just nor Secure”, published today by the Centre for Policy Studies, this is worrying because “in an adversarial system such as the English one, the right to know and challenge the opposing case is not merely a feature of the system, it is the system”.

Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , and | 3 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Hywel
    @paulwalter They will do that anyway. Such Labour attack leaflets rarely have much allegiance that nuanced truth. If you are going to be a liberal party th...
  • Andy Hinton
    I can't think of any good reason why a liberal party worth its salt would make abstaining on a kick-the-marginalised amendment from the Tories a three line whip...
  • Jennie
    Big hugs for CJ And a hearty two fingers to those sacking her and their flimsy crappy reasons for doing so...
  • James
    If this is true, then it seems both a ludicrous over reaction and an indication of how unimportant women and equalities are seen to be. One would hope that not ...
  • Tom King
    I fail to see 1) how voting against a Conservative amendment could possibly be dancing to their tune 2) why it precludes also opposing Labour's bill in its enti...