Key Justice and Security Bill resources
29 May 2012
The Justice and Security Bill, which proposes to introduce secret ‘Closed Material Procedure’ (CMP) hearings into civil trials, has been published. Here are some useful resources for picking your way through the controversy:
- The Bill can be found here in ‘clickable content’ format, and here as a single PDF document. You can watch the Bill wind its way through Parliament from here.
- The Ministry of Justice’s page on the Bill, including some ‘myth-busting’ (including ‘This is undermining the centuries old legal tradition’) is here.
- 84 responses to the Green Paper which led to this bill can be found here, and the Government’s response of 29 May is here.
- The Joint Committee on Human Rights’ highly critical report on the proposals is here.
- My post from last week on the key concessions made by the Government since the Green Paper is here. I commented that despite the removal of inquests from scope and the trigger for CMPs changing from “public interest” to “national security”, the key criticisms of the bill remain.
- You can access all of the UK Human Rights Blog coverage of the secret trials proposals here, including our exclusive on the Special Advocates’ opposition to the proposals, which became the most damaging aspect of the case against the Green Paper.
- Some press coverage: Government scraps ‘secret inquests’ plan (BBC), Climbdown on secret justice: Victory for the Mail’s campaign as Clarke says inquests WON’T be held behind closed doors (Daily Mail), Secret courts plan: it’s still justice in the dark (Guardian), Clarke listens to Daily Mail on secret justice proposals (Press Gazette)
- The University of Reading’s excellent resources page from its Law, Terrorism and the Right to Know team
More to come on the proposals soon…
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Any idea where you can find the Government’s response to the JCHR Report on the JCHR inquiry into the Green Paper (referred to in the Government’s Response to the Consultation and on the Consultation website but not linked)? Can’t find it on Hansard …
I’d also recommend the University of Reading’s Law, Terrorism and the Right to Know project’s resource page here:
http://www.reading.ac.uk/LTRK/Securitysecrecyandcivilproceedings/ltrkSecuritySecrecyandEvidenceinCivilProceedings2.aspx
They’re on Twitter: @unirdg_LTRK
Excellent – thanks. I have added. Also added the JCHR report.
Thank you for the link