'Historic' ruling on control orders

Wednesday, 02 December 2009 15:00

The Government has been dealt a further blow to its policy of using secret evidence to obstruct due process.

In what human rights lawyers have hailed as a ‘historic’ ruling, the High Court yesterday judged that the Government could not deny individuals bail citing secret evidence as reasons for keeping them locked up.

Lord Justice Laws said it was "impossible" to conclude "that in bail cases a less stringent procedural standard is required". He said that the government was obliged, as with cases involving control orders, to provide an "irreducible minimum" of evidence against a defendant.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson, reacting to the High Court decision said, "My sole objective is protecting the public and this judgment will make that job harder.

"We will do everything possible to keep this country safe and are taking steps accordingly in the light of this unhelpful judgment."

But as Shami Chakrabarti (pictured), director of human rights campaign group Liberty, pointed out, "The hard lesson of recent years is that diluting Britain's core values and abandoning justice makes us both less safe and free."

"Yet again it takes a senior judge to point out what most people already know - if the government is going to lock you up, it needs to tell you why", she added.

Three terror suspects in June this year won their battle against the government’s use of secret evidence to enjoin control orders when Law Lords ruled that the courts must "insist that the person affected be told what is alleged against him". The House of Lords ruled that the government should either disclose the information that necessitated control orders, or abandon them.