The worst excesses of the war on terror have been revealed by open courts and a free media. Yet the justice and security green paper seeks to place government above the law and would undermine such crucial scrutiny (Report, 5 March). It would permit the extension of closed material procedures, in which claimants and their lawyers are excluded from court and refused sight of government evidence, to any civil claim, whenever a minister considers that openness is against the "public interest". This violates two basic principles of our common law system: the right of every party to know the case against them, so that they can answer it; and that there must be equality of arms between parties in court. It would permit secret hearings, and the giving of secret judgments by courts, accessible only to the government. Government presents the green paper as its reaction to claims by those tortured and detained at Guantánamo Bay. Surely the response to the exposure of British complicity in kidnap and torture ought to be to ensure such events will never be repeated, not that they could never be exposed.
Shami Chakrabarti Liberty
David Davis MP
Helena Kennedy QC
Lord Ken Macdonald QC
Rev Nicholas Mercer
Dinah Rose QC, Human Rights Lawyer of the Year
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