Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2007

My Lords, I echo the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in his irritation at the use of the word ““stakeholders””. I was once so irritated by it that I looked in the Oxford large dictionary to find out who used the word first. I discovered that it was my then noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf. I think I indicated on a previous occasion that when we take over the Benches opposite we shall shout, ““It is time for the stakeholders now””. I hope that we can then abolish the word from the vocabulary altogether. The usual suspects who would object to anything being done on the basis of a European directive are not in their places today. I see the Minister looking around to see where they have gone. I have very little to say about these trivial amendments. I do, however, have something to say about the basic special advocacy system, because it is a very opportune moment for the Minister to give me the Government’s response to the case of the Secretary of State for the Home Department v MB, which was determined on 31 October—a bare three or four weeks ago—by the Judicial Committee of this House. In that case, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, said: "““The assistance which special advocates can give has been acknowledged … and it is no doubt possible for such advocates on occasion to demonstrate that evidence relied on against a controlled person is tainted, unreliable or self-contradictory. I share the view to which the Strasbourg court inclined in Chahal … repeated in Al-Nashif … that the engagement of special advocates may be a valuable procedure. But, as Lord Woolf observed in Roberts … ‘The use of an SAA is, however, never a panacea for the grave disadvantages of a person affected not being aware of the case against him.’ The reason is obvious. In any ordinary case, a client instructs his advocate what his defence is to the charges made against him, briefs the advocate on the weaknesses and vulnerability of the adverse witnesses, and indicates what evidence is available by way of rebuttal. This is a process which it may be impossible to adopt if the controlled person does not know the allegations made against him and cannot therefore give meaningful instructions, and the special advocate, once he knows what the allegations are, cannot tell the controlled person or seek instructions without permission, which in practice (as I understand) is not given. ‘Grave disadvantage’ is not, I think, an exaggerated description of the controlled person’s position where such circumstances obtain. I would respectfully agree with the opinion of Lord Woolf in Roberts … that the task of the court in any given case is to decide, looking at the process as a whole, whether a procedure has been used which involved significant injustice to the controlled person””." The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, finds it impossible to conceive of any fairness where the special advocate system is used. I wish that the Judicial Committee had simply said that the special advocate system was simply to be struck out in any event, but it has not gone that far. The result of its judgment is that individual cases will come forward time and again, all the way up the House of Lords, saying that in their case the use of the special advocate system has led to injustice. I mention this because it is such a recent decision, and so far we have not had any reaction from the Government save for a sigh of relief from the Home Secretary that she had not suffered a worse defeat. This is an opportunity for the Minister speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Justice to give us his reaction on behalf of the Government to the condemnation by the Judicial Committee of this House of the system which we on these Benches have opposed on principle from its very inception. We have opposed it because it is unjust and cannot continue. I wait to hear the Minister’s response.