UK Parliament / Open data

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 62. My noble and learned friend the Minister has outlined that this is a balance of security and fairness. In a closed material procedure, I do not think it is wrong to say that the national security issue is a higher priority for the Government who are party to the proceedings, and fairness is higher up the priority list for a claimant who has been excluded.

Let us take the example of a claimant who has been excluded from the hearing and is sitting in the corridor whiling away the hours while the proceedings go on, and turns to the rules of court that have been drafted and looks at Clause 7, as we have it, unamended. How is the claimant not going to conclude, when looking at those rules, that almost the sole interest the court is required to take into account is national security? According to paragraphs (c), (d) and (e), the court has to consider giving a summary, but this is not required. To preserve the integrity of the court, Clause 7 is too constrained around the requirements of national security

and does not bring in the need for fairness of the claimant, who will be sitting there wanting to know as much as possible about the evidence and, if possible, to know the gist of the case. Bringing in some consideration of the need for the claimant to have enough information to provide instructions is incredibly important. There must be some requirement given to the court to consider the issues of fairness under the rules.

Secondly, although I take full notice of the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, that the special advocates who are there on behalf of the excluded party cannot be the sole judge of whether national security is breached if a particular summary of the case is given, what would be the objection to including the special advocate in the process of deciding what the summary is? Perhaps they could be involved with the relevant party because, as the legislation is drafted, the duty of not revealing national security has in any event been given to the court, so why not have a process where at least the claimant would know that the special advocate is able to partake in that process to determine the summary and the court is the final gateway to ensuring that national security is not breached? Therefore, I support Amendment 62.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

739 cc170-1 

Session

2012-13

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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