Before the Law

As the media went into hyperdrive about the vote to permit gay marriage, a House of Commons committee quietly axed amendments to the Justice and Security Bill that would have made it less damaging to freedom. The amendments made in the Lords would have meant judges could only grant secret hearings – or ‘Closed Material Procedures’ (CMPs) – if other alternatives like the existing system of public interest immunity had been ruled out.

This Bill seeks to allow ‘secret courts’ in the UK, so cases that are potentially embarrassing to government can be held behind closed doors. After the axing of the amendments, the  Bill now determines that defendants – or claimants in civil cases – will be excluded from the hearings where their fates will be decided. They will not be allowed to know or challenge the details of the case against them and will have to be represented by a security-cleared special advocate, rather than their own lawyer.

Franz Kafka, 'Before the Law' (unknown artist)

In other words, if this Bill becomes law, the government would be able to do anything it likes, to anyone it likes, under a veil of secrecy.

Amnesty International UK Head of Policy and Government Affairs, Allan Hogarth, had this to say: 'If the Bill becomes law we will end up with victims of human rights violations being prevented from seeing secret evidence against them and even being prevented from talking to their own lawyers.'

Secret courts and judgements handed down on an accused who has no right to defend themselves are a tool of true totalitarianism, a legitimised form of ‘disappearing’ undesirables and troublemakers.

As 'members of the public' are kept lingering on the fringes of a legal system which has introduced nearly 4000 new instruments in 2012 alone, and where ignorance of the law is no defence, the hard-won right for justice to be seen to be done is set to go the same way as double jeopardy and trial by jury. And if no one knows, how are they supposed to care?