Rip up plans for secret justice, urges Miliband
Now Labour joins attack on controversial bill
ED Miliband has dealt another heavy blow to government plans to extend ‘secret justice’ by warning ministers to drop legislation from next month’s Queen’s Speech and go back to the drawing board. The Labour leader used an interview with the Daily Mail to signal that his party will not support the proposals unless the Government agrees to abandon plans to change the law in the next session of Parliament and open cross-party talks on how to proceed.
Mr Miliband admitted the last Labour government had been too ready to make fundamental legal changes that threatened ancient liberties on the grounds of national security, adding: ‘The experience in this area is that rushed legislation is bad legislation.’
The intervention is the first by the Labour leader in the increasingly fractious debate over plans to allow ministers to order closed hearings in any civil court case or inquest that they deem threatens the public interest. It is particularly significant, since with the Liberal Democrats also refusing to back the proposals as they stand, the draft Bill now appears to have no chance of becoming law.
Mr Miliband’s call for the legislation to be dropped from the Queen’s Speech to allow time for a new green paper to be drawn up and considered would mean compromise proposals not coming into effect until late 2013 at the earliest.
The Daily Mail, which has led criticism of the plans for more secret courts as an affront to traditions of open justice, revealed yesterday that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has warned David Cameron and other members of the National Security Council that major changes are needed.
Some senior Tories are privately livid that Mr Clegg has ‘pulled the rug’ from under the legislation months after it was first unveiled.
The Prime Minister insisted his security plans were still likely to be included in the Queen’s Speech, the Government’s annual announcement of its planned new legislation. ‘There is still time to deal with everybody’s concerns,’ he said.
Mr Cameron claimed there were ‘gaps in our defences because it isn’t currently possible to use intelligence information in a court of law without sometimes endangering national security’.
Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, meanwhile, indicated that the main reason the Government wanted to change the law was to prevent MI5 and MI6 officers ever again having to defend their actions in civil court cases.
The Government chose to pay compensation to terror suspects who alleged they had been tortured rather than contest their claims, and reveal potentially sen- sitive evidence. Mr Clarke signalled he was ready to give ground over judicial, rather than ministerial, authorisation of closed hearings – and possibly using the procedure in inquests.
But, in a series of interviews throughout the day beginning with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he admitted he was ‘riled’ by Mr Clegg’s remarks, and claimed discussing security information in public could potentially put sources’ lives at risk.
‘I’d love open justice, but let’s have some common sense here,’ the Justice Secretary said. ‘Open justice cannot be at the expense of lives being lost.’
He also revealed he has taken the security services’ word for it that the U.S. has already started holding back some intelligence from Britain because of concerns it would become public, a claim disputed by some security sources in Washington.
‘The Americans have got nervous that we are going to start revealing some of their information and they have started cutting back, I am assured, on what they disclose,’ Mr Clarke said.
‘I’m not told exactly, but I’m told in fact the Americans have been extremely cautious since the Binyam Mohamed case [in which UK courts ordered publication of details of alleged torture] and it’s getting in the way of co-operation.’
Mr Miliband said he accepted there was an ‘issue that needs to be looked at’ about the handling of intelligence shared with the UK by foreign governments.
‘But it’s very clear the green paper has been drawn far too widely,’ the Labour leader added.
‘Organised crime cases, for example, could be part of these closed procedures. The right to a fair trial, a fair hearing in open court, has got to be the best way forward.
‘It’s clear ministers have got to narrow substantially the proposals. It should not be in the Queen’s Speech and they should have another go at a green paper. It is very hard to see how that can be done for the Queen’s Speech in a way that is orderly.’
Parliament’s cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights said the proposals were an affront to the rule of law based on ‘spurious assertions’ and a misguided attempt to please America.