Cameron insists ‘secret justice’ vital for UK’s national security

The Prime Minister defended a series of proposals which have angered civil-rights campaigners, MPs and peers by saying they were necessary for the UK’s defences.

He was joined by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, who said that while he shared some of the concerns, hearings involving national security cannot be allowed to take place in public if that means lives would be lost.

They both spoke out after Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he could not support the Government’s proposals for more secret hearings in their current form.

MPs and peers on Parliament’s cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights published a damning report on the controversial proposals, saying they were based on “vague predictions” and “spurious assertions” about catastrophic consequences.

In reality, the plans are a “radical departure from long-standing traditions of open justice” which should only ever be used when publicly disclosing material would carry “a real risk of harm to national security”, the committee said.

But Mr Cameron said: “It is the job of the Prime Minister to make sure that we do everything that is necessary to keep our country safe, particularly to keep our country safe from serious and organised crime, and also from terrorist threats that we have faced in this country, that we still face in this country.

“As I see it, there are some significant gaps in our defences, gaps because of the moving-on of technology – people making telephone calls through the internet, rather than through fixed line – but also gaps in our defences because it isn’t currently possible to use intelligence information in a court of law without sometimes endangering national security.

“I want us – and the Government wants us – to plug those gaps but let’s be clear, we will do it in a way that properly respects civil liberties.”

He added there was “still time to deal with everybody’s concerns”, agreeing that the Government should not put civil liberties at risk by taking every step necessary to keep the country safe.

Draft legislation, expected in next month’s Queen’s Speech, would propose allowing the Government’s listening centre GCHQ to access information from emails and internet use “on demand” and “in real time” without a warrant.

But Downing Street has also insisted that only data – times, dates, numbers and addresses – would be accessible, and not content.

Mr Clarke said proposals in his justice and security green paper were needed to ensure other countries, particularly the US, were happy to share intelligence without fear of it being exposed in British courts.

“The Americans have got nervous that we are going to start revealing some of their information, and they have started cutting back, I’m sure, on what they disclose,” he told the BBC.

He said that while he was not given specific details, he had been made aware that the American agencies were “extremely cautious” in the wake of the case of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed – who claims he has been mistreated by security and intelligence officials – and it was “getting in the way” of investigations.

Mohamed’s case risked damaging the UK’s intelligence relationship with America amid claims that Britain released US intelligence that was not already in the public domain, Mr Clarke has said.

The Justice Secretary also said the changes would allow judges and coroners to have access to more information instead of the “silence” that happens now over sensitive evidence.

“I’d love open justice but let’s have some common sense here. Open justice cannot be at the expense of lives being lost,” he said.

But Sapna Malik, Mohamed’s lawyer at Leigh Day & Co, accused the Government of playing up the fears.

“What should be remembered about Binyam’s case, which was key to revealing Britain’s complicity in the CIA’s rendition programme, is that the Court of Appeal only allowed seven paragraphs of a court judgment summarising his treatment by the US to be published after the same information had been disclosed in the US,” she said.

“US officials appear to have a ‘misperception’ that UK courts cannot be trusted to ensure that sensitive information is not disclosed. The UK Government appears to be playing on this misperception for its own end.”

Earlier, Mr Clegg set out his concerns over the Government’s proposals in a letter to the National Security Council in which he warned that his Liberal Democrat colleagues would not be able to back the proposals without major changes.

The plans are aimed at finding a way of managing sensitive evidence from the security services but Mr Clegg said their concerns “cannot be allowed to ride roughshod over the principles of open justice”.

He added that powers to take evidence in secret should not apply to inquests and judges rather than ministers should decide when the measures are used.

Under the moves, a defendant or claimant and their lawyer would be barred from the closed part of the hearing, removing the adversarial nature of the justice system and leading to fears that evidence may not be tested properly and miscarriages of justice could take place.

Labour leader Ed Miliband added that the Government has taken “far too wide an approach” to the problem and called for ministers to think again.