Hazel Blears: Britain must balance open justice with threat of terror

It is right that these matters should be controversial, because they go to the heart of our legal system, protecting the rights of applicants and respondents, ensuring that the role of the state is in the proper place to hold the balance between parties, and trying to ensure that our justice system retains its respect and integrity across the world.

That balance is difficult to draw and is never easy to achieve, and I say that as the Minister with responsibility for counter-terrorism who took the controversial legislation on control orders through the House.

We debated them until 5am in one of our very rare all-night sittings, which was for me evidence of how strongly people felt about these issues and how much they wanted to protect the integrity of our legal system. I share that desire.

The Justice and Security Bill has been debated at length and the issues have been debated in great depth. It is perhaps almost otiose to be debating them again, but a few points need to be made.

We must not forget why we are debating the Bill. If we did not need to debate it, none of us would want to introduce it. Everybody in the House of Commons and in the country believes in the British system of open justice, an adversarial system in which evidence is brought into open court and tested by the parties, allowing the judge to deliberate on the evidence and make a judgment.

We are in this position for two reasons. First, legitimate concerns have been expressed by our intelligence liaison partners, particularly in the United States of America, about the breach of the control principle for intelligence, which has put sources, techniques and capabilities at risk. That is the issue of national security, which is very much about the assets that are at risk.

I am delighted that some provisions have gone through, but concerns nevertheless remain about the possibility of information being disclosed in open court proceedings that could damage our intelligence relationships. That is the first reason why we are debating this issue.

The second reason is that we have seen an increasing number of claims of unlawful detention and allegations of mistreatment or torture by the security services against people who have been held in a range of different circumstances.

Those allegations amount to more than 20 outstanding cases and the number is likely to increase if there is a jurisdiction within which such claims can be ventilated freely.

The position has been that many of those claims have had to be settled because the evidence necessary to prove the case either way impinges on national security.

That is why we have seen payments made to some claimants without having the opportunity to decide whether their claims were well founded as the evidence has not been put into a judicial setting.

I feel particularly strongly about this matter. If the security agencies have been conducting operations in a way that falls outside our framework of human rights, I want those issues to be put before a court and to be litigated. The fact that they cannot be goes to the heart of the reputation of our intelligence services.

People will always say: “Well, you are settling that case because something in it was well founded. That is why you are prepared to pay £2m, £3m or £4m to avoid litigation in our courts.”

I want that information; I 
want to know what happened. Equally, if these claims are unfounded and unfair allegations are being brought against our security services, I want them to be able to defend themselves and the good name and integrity of our intelligence agencies.

I note the views of those who say that “from our history that things can be hidden behind national security issues and the truth does not come out”.

However, in a small number of cases, closed material procedures are necessary. In some circumstances if the secrets we hold, the capabilities, the agents and the capacities we have were to be put in open court, the security of our nation would be threatened.

The process adopted so far has been an attempt to try to get some agreement and consensus on these issues.

It is difficult to do so, but 
the issues at stake are so important, both for our 
national security and for the integrity of our justice system, that we need to keep trying to see whether there is room for a little more movement to get us to a better place.