Uk Government Tells Court Torture Evidence Must Be Held In Secret

By Steve Hynd

The Guardian reports on the latest bit of legal dancing from the British government in the Binyam Mohammed case and others:

Any evidence of MI5 and MI6 involvement in the rendition and torture of Britons now seeking damages must be heard behind closed doors, the government told the high court today.

In a move with profound implications for how the security and intelligence agencies can be held to account, ministers want the evidence to be withheld from the victims of illegal activities and their lawyers.

It is the first time the government has asked the courts to rule that evidence should be kept secret in a civil case involving claims for damages. "I entirely accept [it] is a departure" from the normal course of such litigation, Jonathan Crow QC, for the agencies, the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the attorney general, told Mr Justice Silber.

He said that although such a "closed" procedure had never before been adopted in a civil claim for damages, there was no reason in principle why it should not be used if it was necessary for what he called "the just disposal of the case".

Her Majesty's Government, in a move of awe-inspiring piss-taking, has suggested that cases involving industrial "trade secrets" are a precedent for this move. The snark writes itself.

Lawyers for the seven claimants accuse the government of adopting an "extreme and unprecedented" position. They say it is trying to bypass the normal procedure of "public interest immunity certificates", a well-tried practice whereby the government asks for a gagging order but the final say is with the judge.

Of course it is. Without parliamentary approval, the government is trying to change the ground rules so that these "trade secrets" of torture and rendition never get fully exposed to the light - perhaps because, like the Bush administration, too many senior officials have blood on their hands themselves.