Theresa Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet, would like to thank all those constituents who have contacted her about the campaign run by 38 Degrees on the Justice and Security Bill. Her response to the campaign is set out in this article.
The universal right to a fair trial is one of the central principles of our justice system. The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf summed up a significant problem when he pointed out that the safeguards we use at the moment to protect sensitive information have “the very unfortunate effect that [neither the claimant nor the defendant can] rely on the material that is in issue.”
This is deeply damaging. It means that some of the actions of our security and intelligence agencies are not being properly scrutinised in the courts. Former detainees who bring cases against the Government alleging mistreatment are simply not able to access justice properly. As the Government cannot bring evidence in its defence, it is forced to settle claims with individuals whose cases may be spurious.
Given that some of those involved in these cases are suspected terrorists there is a high risk that millions of pounds of pay-outs made could make their way back to funding terrorist activities.
So it is clear to me that something must be done to reform the system. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson, has confirmed that in this very small number of civil (not criminal) cases “it is preferable that the option of a Closed Material Procedure (CMP) should exist”.
CMPs are not an ideal form of hearing, but in many ways they are less secret than the current safeguards. No country in the world allows evidence to be given in open court which would endanger the lives of sources, agents, or reveal secret intelligence gathering techniques and relationships. This means therefore that some degree of secrecy is essential to protect Britain and those who work to keep us safe.
CMPs at least ensure that a judge will be able to look at all the facts and provide a judgment on whether the Government is in the wrong or not. We should not forget that they are in use in our justice system already. The proposals will apply only to civil cases involving national security evidence; they were never intended to apply to criminal cases.
In my view Part 2 of the Justice and Security Bill provides a better means of getting to the bottom of some of these cases than the current system. It will also keep us safer and prevent our justice system from becoming a global magnet for this sort of litigation.