Alert over ‘Kafkaesque’ justice

A SECRET justice system ‘straight from the pages of a Kafka novel’ is planned by ministers, an influential report has claimed.

Controversial proposals to conduct court cases and inquests behind closed doors would allow the Government to ‘play the national security card’ to avoid being scrutinised, said Amnesty International.

The group’s 50-page dossier is a withering assault on the Justice and Security Bill, due to be debated imminently by the House of Lords.

Critics including the Daily Mail and civil liberties groups have campaigned against the plans.

It has raised fears that inquests into police shootings, soldiers killed by so-called ‘friendly fire’ and other hearings with the potential to embarrass the Government will be shrouded in secrecy. Some campaigners have gone so far as to say that the legislation is a threat to centuries of legal freedoms and even our democracy.

Under the Bill, judges will be able to listen to more civil cases in secret without claimants being permitted to hear evidence.

Amnesty International’s Alice Wyss said the Bill posed ‘a real threat to the principles of fairness and open justice’.

She said: ‘It’s already bad enough that secret procedures have been allowed to creep into the justice system but the Government is now trying to extend secret justice to an unprecedented degree.

‘It wants a system where it can simply play the “national security” card whenever it wants to keep things secret.

‘Evidence that is kept secret, lawyers that can’t talk to you: it’s a secret justice system straight from the pages of a Kafka novel.

‘This Bill will enable the Government to throw a cloak of secrecy over wrongdoing.’

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘Nothing that’s currently heard in open court will be heard in secret in future.’