‘One of the defendants due to face charges in a partly secret trial has pleaded guilty to possessing a terrorist document.’
The Guardian, 9th October 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘This week, the Conservative Party will unveil its plans for human rights reform in the UK. In other news, Chris Grayling’s decision to drastically reduce the number of legal aid contacts granted is successfully challenged, while a prosecution for assisted suicide keeps the assisted dying debate alive.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 28th September 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘Last week Justice Secretary Chris Grayling reported on how often closed material proceedings (CMPs) have been sought under the Justice and Security Act 2013 (JSA), as he is required to do annually under the Act. As the first and only official consolidated presentation of how the new CMP regime is being used, this two-page written ministerial statement warrants close attention.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 5th August 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘Public bodies defending a decision to withhold information requested under freedom of information (FOI) laws can submit evidence to an information rights tribunal in secret, the Court of Appeal has ruled.’
OUT-LAW.com, 4th August 2014
Source: www.out-law.com
‘Last month I penned a post on the issue of how the principle of natural justice can be reconciled with the use of closed procedures in FOIA appeals. The post was written against the backdrop of the Court of Appeal hearing of the appeal in the Browning case. Today the Court of Appeal has handed down its judgment. Mr Browning’s appeal was dismissed.’
Panopticon, 30th July 2014
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
Browning v Information Commissioner and Another [2014] EWCA Civ 1050; [2014] WLR (D) 346
‘The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) Rules 2009 permitted the tribunal when hearing an appeal against a decision of the Information Commissioner to adopt a closed material procedure in which a party and his legal representatives were excluded from the hearing or part of it.’
WLR Daily, 30th July 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘One for spy thriller fans and conspiracy theorists: in the last year, the government has asked judges five times to let it give secret evidence to defend itself in otherwise open court cases.’
BBC News, 22nd July 2014
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘The application to have an entire trial held in secret caused a bit of a stir when news of the application was released earlier this month. The Court of Appeal has now permitted some of the hearing to be heard in public. This will probably be limited to the formalities at the start and end of the trial and parts of the Prosecution Opening.’
Halsbury’s Law Exchange, 17th June 2014
Source: www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk
‘Not since the long gone days of the Star Chamber has a case happened in secret with no reporting of the names of defendants, the charges, or the evidence. Whilst some element of secrecy is common place (see any trial with a youth or a sexual offence in the Crown Court for example) the idea that someone could be arrested, charged and potentially imprisoned without anyone beyond the immediate players knowing about it was anathema to the English lawyer.’
Halsbury’s Law Exchange, 16th June 2014
Source: www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk
‘The issue of just how open our justice system should be is an issue which is or should be of fundamental concern to all practising lawyers. If, as Jeremy Bentham once stated ‘publicity is the very soul of justice’ (cited by Lord Shaw in the leading case of Scott v Scott [1913] AC 477), then an open justice system is the corporeal expression of that soul. However, we now live in times where open justice is increasingly under threat. Indeed, as last week’s headlines reminded us all, matters have now got to a stage where some judges at least have been prepared to allow, not merely the deployment of a limited closed procedure to deal with certain aspects of a case, but a completely secret trial. It no doubt came as a relief to many that the Court of Appeal was not prepared to sanction such a comprehensive departure from the open justice principle: Guardian News v AB CD. However, the mere fact that the judiciary was prepared to contemplate such a procedure shows how far we have come since the days of Scott v Scott.’
Panopticon, 18th June 2014
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
‘The Court of Appeal has published its decision in Guardian News Media v AB and CD. It is not a judgment, the Court says. Judgments – plural – will be given “in due course.” Still, the 24 paragraph decision contains the order and explanation of the order, and gives an indication of some of the reasons that will follow.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 12th June 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘The case of AB and CD has been widely described as “Britain’s first secret trial”. It would be more accurately described as the latest of a number of creeping moves towards secret justice.’
The Guardian, 12th June 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘Plans to hold the criminal trial of two men charged with serious terrorism offences entirely in secret runs the risk of creating a miscarriage of justice that will never be put right, the shadow justice secretary has warned.’
The Guardian, 5th June 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘Nicholas Phillips on the problems posed by the use of secret evidence.’
London Review of Books, 17th April 2014
Source: www.lrb.co.uk
‘Children separated from their parents in secret family court judgments must be able to find out the reasons for the court’s decisions when they grow up, the most senior family judge has said. Sir James Munby, the President of the Family Division, said it was “great concern” that the judgments of all family court judges were not routinely transcribed and published.’
Daily Telegraph, 18th May 2014
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘R (on the application of British Sky Broadcasting Limited) (Respondent) v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (Appellant) [2014] UKSC 17. This was an appeal from a ruling by the Administrative Court that it was procedurally unfair, and therefore unlawful, for BSkyB to have had a disclosure order made against it without full access to the evidence on which the police’s case was based and the opportunity to comment on or challenge that evidence.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 13th March 2014
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘On the hearing of an application by a police officer for a production order under section 9 of, and Schedule 1 to, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, seeking access to journalistic material held by a news organisation for the purposes of an investigation into an alleged offence, the court could not have regard to evidence adduced by the police in support of the application which had not been disclosed to the news organisation.’
WLR Daily, 12th March 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘The important general principle is of course that a party to whom a document has been disclosed in litigation may use that document only for the purpose of the proceedings in which it is disclosed. There are, nonetheless, three significant exceptions to that principle, set out in CPR r31.22(1).’
Panopticon, 7th February 2014
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
‘The seizure of journalists’ notebooks, photographs and digital files could be conducted in secret hearings, owing to a little-publicised clause in a government bill aimed at cutting red tape, media organisations have warned. Requests for notebooks, computer disks, photographs or videos must currently be made in open court and representatives of news groups can be present. But the clause – in the deregulation bill, which comes before the Commons on Monday – significantly alters the way courts consider so-called “production orders”, stripping out current safeguards.’
The Guardian, 31st January 2014
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
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