Clarke defends secret courts on security grounds

British spies cannot be expected to give evidence in open courts and it would only take one such case to damage the UK’s national security, said Kenneth Clarke .

The Justice Secretary defended his proposals to hold more civil hearings and inquests involving Britain’s security services behind closed doors amid growing fears over “secret justice”.

But he admitted he was “most unsettled” by the criticism from special advocates, the lawyers who would be involved in such proceedings, saying he was “very startled by their strong reaction”.

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The group, which included 19 Queen’s Counsel, said the plans “represent a departure from the foundational principle of natural justice” and “undermine the principle that public justice should be dispensed in public”.

But Mr Clarke said the Government was faced with the choice of either not fighting a claim at all and agreeing damages, or turning to the “second best” option of using so-called closed material procedures.

Some 27 possible cases were in the pipeline, he said, but if only one of these cases gave an al Qaida cell the slightest indication of who had been turned or where the information came from, it could damage the UK’s national security. “One case blowing up our intelligence penetration of a group of people would be very, very bad from a national point of view,” he said.

Mr Clarke told the Joint Committee on Human Rights it was not as good as open justice. “If open justice was available we would prefer that, but it is a way in which the judge can have all the relevant evidence put before him or her.”

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