Author: Great Britain: Parliament: Joint Committee on Human Rights

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2012-04-04

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 9780108475788

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) calls for statutory clarification of law on disclosure of national security-sensitive material, but finds no case for more extensive change. The Government has failed to make the case for extending "closed material procedures" to all civil proceedings and to inquests: the Government has not demonstrated that the fairness concern on which it relies to justify the proposal is in fact a real and practical problem. The Committee believes that closed material procedures are inherently unfair and the proposals in the Green Paper are a radical departure from longstanding traditions of open justice and fairness. Nor does it accept that replacing the current law governing disclosure of sensitive material (the law of Public Interest Immunity, or "PII") with closed material procedures is justified. The rule of law requires that decisions about the disclosure of material in legal proceedings be taken by judges not ministers and the current legal framework of PII has not been shown to be inadequate. There is a case, however, for that legal framework to be made clearer in the way in which it applies to national security-sensitive material and the Committee suggests how that could be done by legislation and changes to the Coroners Rules and guidance. The Committee regrets that the Green Paper overlooks the very considerable impact of its proposals on the freedom and ability of the media to report on matters of public interest and concern.