Ken Clarke Bilderberg secret courts 4 intelligence cover-ups

[TonyGosling]

Outrage of 7/7 families over secret courts plan: 'Cynical scheme would let security services hush up their errors'
Justice Ministry plan would allow 'sensitive' cases to be heard in private
Public inquest into 7/7 attacks revealed many failings of police and MI5
Victim's father accuses the state of seeking 'dictator' powers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2110206/Outrage-7-7-families-s ecret-courts-plan-Cynical-scheme-let-security-services-hush-errors.htm l
By Sam Greenhill and Keith Gladdis
Daily MAil - Last updated at 11:05 AM on 5th March 2012
Families of July 7 bombing victims and soldiers killed by ‘friendly fire’ have condemned the Government’s secret justice plans as a ‘dictator’s charter’.
They said proposals to hold inquests and civil cases behind closed doors could rob families of the right to see justice done.
They join a chorus of concern expressed by politicians of all parties about Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke’s plan to allow ‘sensitive’ cases to be heard in private.
The reforms, detailed in a Green Paper on justice and security, would grant the state ‘dictator’ powers and allow the security services to hush up their mistakes, said Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed in the Edgware Road blast on July 7, 2005.
Many of the failings by MI5 and the police over the London bomb atrocities could still be shrouded in secrecy were it not for the public inquest.
Both organisations had been previously cleared of blame for the bombings by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: An impassioned plea against secret justice
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2110228/An-impassioned-plea- secret-justice.html

Mr Foulkes said: ‘The Green Paper doesn’t contain adequate safeguards to prevent the state abusing the powers it would have.
‘Our experience of MI5 gave us some insight into the ability of MI5 to cry “national security” and the politicians to roll over and play dead.
‘The Intelligence and Security Committee was misled by MI5, so MI5 got away with attempts to hide their errors.
‘Giving agents of the state the powers of a dictator and dressing it up as being in the interests of the state is not right.’
Helen Perry, whose Royal Military Policeman son Michael Pritchard was accidentally shot by a British Army sniper, said: ‘The plans for secret court cases are appalling, the public needs to hear what is said. Many things have come to light that have led to changes such as the lack of body armour for soldiers.’
The inquest into the death of 22-year-old Lance Corporal Pritchard in December 2009 is due to be held in May, before the Government’s plans would come into effect.
But Mrs Perry, 49, from East Sussex, is angered that cases like her son’s could be held in secret.
She said: ‘I would be devastated if I was denied access to the inquest into my son’s death. It’s essential to me that we get to the truth. I don’t think they have the right to keep this information from me. These new rules aren’t needed. I understand there are certain parts of Michael’s inquest that need to be kept secret because of the nature of his job.
‘But the current rules mean that people can give evidence behind screens or that certain things are heard in private, there is no need for change.’
Clifford Tibber, the lawyer representing many 7/7 survivors and families of the victims, said of the Government’s proposals: ‘It is a shocking idea for so many reasons.
‘The unprecedented openness of the evidence in the 7/7 inquests has improved, rather than harmed, national security.
‘The coroner was able to make recommendations designed to improve the effectiveness of the security service.
‘The Government’s proposals are a cynical, self-serving attempt to defeat legitimate claims and stifle the revelation of facts to which the public are entitled.
‘The Government says that the proposals are the only way there can be a fair trial when evidence involving issues of national security is involved. While that may be true for the Government, it means that other parties who are denied access to that evidence cannot possibly have a fair trial. They will not see or hear the evidence and will not have an opportunity of testing it.’
The conduct of the security services was also exposed in the case of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident tortured at Guantanamo Bay.
The Government fought and lost a lengthy legal battle to keep secret what a judge eventually called Mr Mohamed’s ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment’.
Clare Algar of the campaigning legal charity Reprieve, which represented Mr Mohamed, said: ‘The real driver for the Government’s plans is not national security, but political embarrassment.
‘They are seeking to abolish the very legal method by which we first found out that Britain had become mixed up in some of the worst excesses of the “war on terror”.
‘The proposals would leave ministers in effect immune from having to answer for their mistakes, so long as they made the claim that “sensitive information” was involved.’
The Justice Ministry has defended its proposals on the grounds that the security services have been hamstrung in defending themselves against allegations of wrongdoing, because they cannot reveal secret intelligence material in open court.
But lawyers and human rights groups have countered that there already mechanisms in courts by which ‘sensitive’ evidence can be heard in secret.

[Mark Gobell]

[Mark Gobell]

Justice and Security - Green Paper [PDF]

[Mark Gobell]

We hear your fears over open justice loud and clear

By Kenneth Clarke

Last updated at 12:05 AM on 6th March 2012

I am a great believer in the principle of open justice, always have been and always will be.

So I could not be more dismayed that the proposals contained in the Justice and Security Green Paper have given rise to public concerns about ‘secret justice’.

I have heard, loud and clear, the fears from many campaigners including special advocates, that the Government’s proposals are too broadly drawn and might even mean that the likes of the Stephen Lawrence trial and de Menezes case could end up in secret.

That’s not what anyone wants – and it’s why I want to use the consultation period for our proposals to make one thing absolutely clear:

the reforms we are proposing will apply only in very limited circumstances, in a tiny number of civil cases, where public safety could otherwise be put at risk.

In this country we are rightly proud of the worldwide reputation of the British courts, which apply the law openly, in an even-handed way, to all cases that come before them. Justice must be done and seen to be done so that the public can have confidence in the integrity and fairness of our system.

But we face a specific problem with the rules for handling claims in the civil – not criminal – courts. Where individuals are alleging government wrongdoing and sensitive intelligence material is involved, the current rules are not able to ensure that the legal process can reach a conclusion.

That’s because the evidence on which the case rests is often intelligence material obtained by our secret services. Some comes from our allies who will share it only if we promise that it will not be revealed. Some could reveal the identity of sources, or show how we have infiltrated terrorist organisations.

It is obvious that it would endanger the public if our spies simply gave open evidence in civil courts and tribunals about their methods and their knowledge. [Like they didn't at the so-called July 7 "Inquest"]


Ken Clarke fears the proposals might mean that the likes of the Jean Charles de Menezes (left) case and Stephen Lawrence (right) could end up in secret

But this means that a court cannot consider all the relevant evidence, so the government has to cease to defend the claim, and settle out of court. The consequence is that the taxpayer ends up footing the bill for vast sums in compensation. And most importantly it leaves the public with no independent judgment by a court on very serious matters.

That is why we are consulting widely on proposals to allow sensitive evidence in a handful of cases to be argued before a judge in a closed court.

Our intention is that the circumstances in which this would apply will be narrowly drawn – not criminal trials, nor most civil proceedings, but only that handful of civil cases, and only where the most highly sensitive intelligence material is involved.

Inquests would be affected only in the most extreme circumstances; and even then, only the parts of the evidence which could compromise public safety would be heard in closed session.

And, critically, we are seeking to ensure that strong safeguards are built in. That is why, under our plans, the final decision on whether individual pieces of evidence must be disclosed will rest with the judge.

What we are seeking is a commonsense solution to a serious problem – how to ensure that the government can properly be held to account when individuals make serious allegations, without revealing information which would compromise public safety.

Countries share intelligence with the UK knowing that it will be used properly, and not disclosed where that compromises security or lives. We share it with them on the same basis. We protect all our citizens by co-operating in this way.

We have proposed the new measures because we think that making sure that the evidence is seen by a court – even with tightly drawn restrictions on what a party to the case can know – is better than the current situation in which a case might not be heard at all. If we get this right, instead of justice denied, for the first time, claims against the government will be decided on the basis of all the evidence.

Some people are understandably worried that these changes would have let the government hide friendly-fire incidents or accusations of involvement in torture and rendition. I want to put their fears to rest.

Under these plans, there will be no change to anyone’s right to make their allegations public. Courts would continue to hear the vast majority of cases in the open. Closed hearings would be limited to evidence that would genuinely endanger the most sensitive information that we rely on to protect the public.

These proposals are not about hiding evidence of government incompetence or corruption: they are about protecting the public and ensuring that justice is done.



.

[Mark Gobell]

Extract from the Consultation response from Reprieve

[TonyGosling]

'It has left me very suspicious of the state apparatus. There is a natural tendency to try to cover things up – it is very hard fought. I have no doubt if this legislation had been in play it would have been used to cover up most of the details of the death of Baha Mousa. 'Behind the scenes there were a lot of recriminations against people who had disclosed evidence or talked about it. The Ministry of Defence – not the Army so much, but Whitehall – did not want anything appearing in the Press.

Controversial secret justice plans 'are a charter for cover-ups' says former Army legal chief
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2113681/Secret-justice-plans-c harter-cover-ups-says-Army-legal-chief.html
By Jason Groves - 12 March 2012
Controversial plans to introduce a system of 'secret justice' will be used to cover up allegations of torture and war crimes, a former top Army legal officer has warned.
Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Mercer, who served as the Army's chief legal adviser in Iraq, said he had 'reeled with horror' at plans for sweeping powers allowing ministers to withhold 'sensitive' information from open civil court cases and inquests.
Lt Col Mercer, now an Anglican priest, was a key figure in bringing to light the case of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel worker who died following a savage beating by British soldiers in 2003.
The case is widely seen as one of the most shameful episodes in the Army's recent history and has led to major changes in the guidelines for handling detainees.
But Lt Col Mercer told the Daily Mail the case would never have come to the public's attention if the proposals had been in place.
'I was heavily involved in the Baha Mousa case and fought against the use of degrading treatment against prisoners of war,' he added.
'It has left me very suspicious of the state apparatus. There is a natural tendency to try to cover things up – it is very hard fought. I have no doubt if this legislation had been in play it would have been used to cover up most of the details of the death of Baha Mousa.
'Behind the scenes there were a lot of recriminations against people who had disclosed evidence or talked about it. The Ministry of Defence – not the Army so much, but Whitehall – did not want anything appearing in the Press.
'I am quite convinced this legislation will be used to cover up evidence of complicity in torture and rendition. Its remit is even wider and there are plenty of cases in the pipeline that will be caught by it.'
The security services have been pressing for the secrecy measures in the wake of the case of former Guantanamo Bay inmate Binyam Mohamed, who sued the Government for complicity in torture. Labour ministers tried to conceal documents disclosing his alleged mistreatment, but were over-ruled by the courts.
But critics claim the new measures, which also apply to inquests, would have allowed ministers to cover up scandals surrounding cases such as the 7/7 bombings, the killing of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot dead by police after being mistaken for a terrorist, and a number of deaths caused by so-called 'friendly fire' in Iraq.
David Cameron mounted an outspoken defence of the proposals in the Justice and Security Green Paper last week, arguing they were needed to prevent terror suspects making compensation claims against the security services in cases that involved sensitive intelligence material.
But he made no mention of the proposed use of secret proceedings in inquests or wider civil cases – leaving the door open to a possible compromise in this area.
Despite Mr Cameron's stance, senior Liberal Democrats, including Nick Clegg, are understood to be seeking 'clarification' of the proposed legislation from the Ministry of Justice. One source close to Mr Clegg said: 'At the end of the day, the Government has been consulting on this, and people have expressed concerns, some in very strong terms.
'Most people accept there is a problem with the way some terror compensation cases have worked. But it may be that we need to reassure people about the intention and the breadth of what the Government is trying to do.'
Under the plans for 'closed material proceedings', ministers will be able to withhold 'sensitive' information from open civil court cases and inquests, and require the evidence to be heard in secret.
The plans have provoked a storm of protest from the legal profession and civil liberties campaigners.
Even the so-called 'special advocates' who would oversee the secret hearings have warned that the changes have the potential to 'damage the public interest'.
Lt Col Mercer said: 'It is no surprise to me that most lawyers, including the special advocates and judges, are opposed to it – it is an affront to justice.
'At a basic level I do not see how you can act for a client if you cannot discuss the evidence with them.
'As a state, the use of torture and rendition is illegal and corrupting. I'm now a clergyman and I would appeal to all those involved to look to their consciences.'

[TonyGosling]

Royal British Legion to Ken Clarke: Drop “Monstrous” Secret Hearings Now
http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/news/campaigning  /royal-british-legion-to-ken-clarke-drop-%E2%80%9Cmonstrous%E2%80%9D- secret-hearings-now
Royal British Legion - 04 April 2012
Bereaved Armed Forces families will benefit from challenges to Ken Clarke's "monstrous" plans to create secret inquests, The Royal British Legion said today.
"The Justice Secretary's arrogant and reckless plans to hide military inquests behind a veil of national security are a perversion of justice and must be stopped," the nation's leading Armed Forces charity said in a statement. "Bereaved Armed Forces families must not be cut out of inquests into their loved ones' deaths," it added.
"As the national custodian of Remembrance and the source of advice and comfort to bereaved military families, we applaud Nick Clegg and the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The rule of law must prevail over these monstrous plans that would undermine centuries of British justice.
"The nation's fallen heroes, and their families, deserve better."
Clarke had earlier accused the Legion of believing "conspiracy theories" about the proposed changes which would allow court hearings into military deaths to be held in secret.
"Evidently, the conspiracy theory is also believed by the Deputy Prime Minister, an influential cross-party committee of MPs and expert groups such as INQUEST, Liberty, and Reprieve," the Legion added. "It's time that Ken Clarke stopped hiding behind empty rhetoric and dropped these dangerous plans.".......



Secret courts condemned - by the very lawyers who would have to run them
Security services claim they cannot defend themselves in open court without disclosing sensitive intelligence
Medical negligence cases, inquests touching on national security or claims against police could all be held in secret
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109001/Secret-courts-condemne d--lawyers-run-them.html

Secret civil court hearings 'would put government above the law'
Shami Chakrabarti, David Davis, Lord Macdonald and others say Ken Clarke's plans undermine essential scrutiny of government
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/mar/06/secret-court-hearings-govern ment-law
Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent - guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 March 2012 13.03 GMT
Extending secret hearings into civil courts will undermine effective scrutiny of government operations in the "war on terror", according to prominent civil liberties activists and lawyers.
In a letter to the Guardian, the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, the Conservative MP David Davis, Lady Kennedy QC, the former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald QC and others warn that the government's justice and security green paper violates "basic principles of the common law".
Their criticism comes as the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, gives evidence to parliament's joint human rights committee on the impact of the proposals that will prevent claimants being told of the evidence against them.
"The worst excesses of the war on terror were revealed by open courts and a free media. Yet the justice and security green paper seeks to place government above the law and would undermine such crucial scrutiny," the letter – also signed by the Rev Nicholas Mercer, human rights lawyer of the year, and Dinah Rose QC, who has worked a special advocate in security sensitive cases – declares.
"It would permit the extension of closed material procedures, in which claimants and their lawyers are excluded from court and refused sight of government evidence, to any civil claim, whenever a minister considers that openness is against the 'public interest'.
"This violates two of the most basic principles of our common law system: the right of every party to know the case against them, so that they can answer it; and the principle that there must be equality of arms between parties in court. It would permit secret hearings, and the giving of secret judgments by courts, accessible only to the government."

[Mark Gobell]

US acted to conceal evidence of intelligence failure before 9/11

Operation Foxden, delayed by turf war between the FBI and the CIA, given green light three days before the al-Qaida attacks

Ian Cobain
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 March 2012 20.26 BST
Article history

The US government shut down a series of court cases arising from a multimillion pound business dispute in order to conceal evidence of a damning intelligence failure shortly before the 9/11 attacks, MPs were told.

Moreover, the UK government is now seeking similar powers that could be used to prevent evidence of illegal acts and embarrassing failures from emerging in court, David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, told the Commons.

The Justice and Security green paper being put forward by Ken Clarke's justice ministry has already faced widespread criticism from civil rights groups, media representatives and lawyers working within the secret tribunal system that hears terrorism-related immigration cases.

Davis demanded to know how its proposals could be prevented from being used to cover up crimes and errors. "In light of previous revelations about the UK government's complicity in torture and rendition of detainees to locations like of Libya, Afghanistan, or illegally into American hands … how will the Government prevent the Justice and Security green paper proposals being misused in a similar way to cover up illegal acts and embarrassments rather than protect national security?"

Davis said that in 1998 the FBI seized upon an opportunity to eavesdrop on every landline and telephone call into and out of Afghanistan in a bid to build intelligence on the Taliban. The Bureau discovered that the Taliban regime had awarded a major telephone network contract to a joint US-UK venture, run by an American entrepreneur, Ehsanollah Bayat and two British businessmen, Stuart Bentham and Lord Michael Cecil.

"The plan was simple" Davis said. "Because the Taliban wanted American equipment for their new phone network, this would allow the FBI and NSA, the National Security Agency, to build extra circuits into all the equipment before it was flown out to Afghanistan for use. Once installed, these extra circuits would allow the FBI and NSA to record or listen live to every single landline and mobile phone call in Afghanistan. The FBI would know the time the call was made and its duration. They would know the caller's name, the number dialled, and even the caller's PIN."

But the plan, Operation Foxden, was delayed by a turf war, during which "the FBI and the CIA spent more than a year fighting over who should be in charge", he said.

The operation was eventually given the green light on 8 September 2001 - three days before the al-Qaida attacks. "A huge opportunity was missed," Davis said.

He added that when Bentham and Cecil sued Bayat in the New York courts, and Bayat lodged a legal claim against the two Britons, the case was struck out and all records removed from the courts public database on the grounds of State Secrets Privilege, a legal doctrine that permits the US government to shut down litigation on the grounds of national security. The Britons attempted to sue in London, Davis said, but the case failed because "so long is the reach of the American State Secrets Privilege" that they were prevented from discussing key details of the US case.

"Through heavy-handed use of State Secrets Privilege, US agencies can dictate what British judges in British courts are entitled to know, and how much British citizens in British courts are entitled to say," Davis told MPs. "What chance did Bentham and Cecil, or anyone else in a similar position, have of getting a fair hearing when American intelligence agencies can shut down cases without explanation in the US, and use State Secrets Privilege to control what evidence courts can see in the UK?"

Davis said that when he talked about this episode with "someone in the know in one of the agencies involved" he was told: "Ten years have passed, and the culpable people have retired or moved on, so it's no longer embarrassing."

Davis said the British green paper proposals are "more Draconian than State Secrets Privilege", and added: "Giving a government agency an absolute right to secrecy encourages bad behaviour.

"This is the same State Secrets Privilege, and same American government, that the British green paper on Justice and Security is designed to protect," Davis said, adding that the case demonstrates "how intelligence agencies misuse these laws, not to protect our security, but to avoid their own embarrassment and cover up criminal activity."

Bayat has previously denied that he or any of his companies acted unlawfully and said that they have never acted as "an agent, informant or spy". He could not immediately be contacted to comment on Davis' speech.

The foreign officer minister Jeremy Browne told MPs: "The green paper proposals will enable better scrutiny [of government], which is a vital element in a healthy democracy." He added that proposals are "not about covering up embarrassment, it is about enabling the work of the courts".

Reprieve's Executive Director, Clare Algar, director of the legal charity Reprieve, said: "This demonstrates just how ready the intelligence services are to cry national security in order to cover up their own embarrassment. It is yet another compelling example - if one were needed - of why we cannot let the UK Government's plans for secret justice go ahead."


.

[Mark Gobell]

Damning verdict on ill-thought-out secret justice proposals

The joint committee on human rights, helped by a tenacious legal adviser, has done a fine job of dissecting the green paper on justice and security

Comments (66)

Joshua Rozenberg
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 April 2012 00.01 BST
Article history

Lord Lester QC at the high court, London. Photograph: Steve Maisey/Rex Features

Parliament's joint committee on human rights (JCHR) has produced a unanimous report on the government's justice and security green paper that is as precise and persuasive as the green paper itself is unfocussed and unconvincing.

The JCHR has narrowed down the government's objectives to those it regards as necessary for the protection of national security and come up with a proportionate way of meeting them.

It has also identified a "serious omission" from the discussion document launched by the government last October - the impact of its proposals on the freedom of the media to report on matters of public interest and concern. "The role of the media in holding the government to account and upholding the rule of law is a vital aspect of the principle of open justice," the JCHR says.

That principle was reflected in yesterday's victory for the Guardian in the Court of Appeal, delivered after the JCHR report was completed. In allowing reporters access to documents referred to in court unless there are reasons not to, Lord Justice Toulson said that "open justice lets in the light and allows the public to scrutinise the workings of the law, for better or for worse".

And here I must declare an interest. I gave oral evidence to the JCHR alongside Ian Cobain, one of the Guardian's investigative reporters. So, too, did Jan Clements, one of the Guardian's in-house lawyers. Our evidence is reflected in the committee's recommendation that the principle of open justice should be taken into account in deciding whether or not evidence should attract what is known as public interest immunity (PII).

This takes us to the heart of the committee's disagreement with the government. The green paper proposes to extend the availability of so-called closed material procedures (CMP) in all civil cases to any evidence whose disclosure might harm the public interest. But the JCHR is not persuaded that there is a strong enough case to justify abandoning the existing PII system.

That system was developed by the courts to deal with the problem of evidence that may be too sensitive for one side in litigation to disclose in the normal way to the other. A judge looks at the material and conducts a balancing exercise, weighing up the public interest in non-disclosure against the public interest in open justice. If the former outweighs the latter, neither side can rely on the excluded evidence and the judge makes no use of it.

By contrast, there is no balancing exercise in a CMP. One party - effectively, the government - decides that evidence is too sensitive to be disclosed to the other side. If the court agrees that disclosure would harm the public interest, the judge can rely on the "closed" evidence while the non-government party can not. That party's interests are represented by a "special advocate", a lawyer who is not allowed to tell him what the evidence says.

In some circumstances, the special advocate may be able to give the party whose interests he represents a gist of the evidence, allowing that party to give effective instructions to the special advocate (such as "I was abroad that week"). Under the government's proposals, even that safeguard would not apply in certain categories of case. The JCHR rightly recommends judges should always conduct a balancing exercise, even with CMPs, and that the government should always have to disclose sufficient evidence in CMPs to allow effective instructions to be given to the special advocate.

Ultimately, CMPs are unfair. And they are not even welcomed by the judges, at least as far as the JCHR was able to find out. As Lord Kerr famously said in the supreme court, "evidence which has been insulated from challenge may positively mislead."

As the JCHR recognises, the green paper was designed to reassure the Americans that their intelligence would not be shared against the British government's wishes. But an absolute ban would be against the rule of law, and it's something that not even the US intelligence services can guarantee. The JCHR's measured, proportionate solution is to increase certainty in the kind of cases that caused the US government such concern. The so-called Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction, which applies where one party becomes "mixed up" in the wrongdoing of another, should be put onto a statutory footing as the government itself had proposed.

Persuasive though the committee's conclusions are, the government is under no obligation to take account of them. But it has already got the government on the run.

First, the committee complained that the government was not publishing responses to its own green paper as they were received, contrary to normal practice. The justice secretary, Ken Clarke, prevaricated, saying he'd have to ask each of nearly 100 people who'd replied whether they minded. Eventually, he did so and all but six of the 90 responses were published.

Next, the JCHR persuaded the government to narrow the scope of its proposals. Cynics might say that the security and intelligence services had initially asked for much broader powers than they needed in order to concede gracefully. I doubt it. Listening to Clarke, he seemed to think that the green paper he'd signed off dealt only with material whose disclosure would harm national security.

It was not, but the JCHR was right to recognise that Clarke's oral evidence reflected a change of position - and one it now seeks to hold the government to.

The committee also took a properly sceptical approach to late evidence from David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, on cases that could not be decided without the use of CMPs. Such questions should be decided by judges, it said, using PII procedures.

The JCHR was also right to resist the introduction of CMPs into inquests. Only one inquest has been delayed because it involved intercept evidence, the disclosure of which ministers still refuse to permit. But, I learn from the JCHR report, the Azelle Rodney inquest is to go ahead in September as a public inquiry. So there's a way round that problem too.

The JCHR has only two high-powered lawyer/politicians among its members: Lord Lester QC and Dominic Raab MP. How, then, has it produced such a clear, well-argued, forensic dissection of an ill-considered, vague and confusing green paper?

The answer, of course, is the committee's officials; and, above all its long-serving legal adviser. If anyone deserves the credit for trying to preserve the rule of law against the government's superficially attractive but deeply damaging proposals, it is Murray Hunt.


My comment:

[TonyGosling]

Secret justice may be needed to hear 'important' drone case, judge suggests
Secret justice proposals may be needed in an “important” case about the Government’s intelligence-sharing agreements with the US, a senior judge has suggested for the first time.
By Martin Beckford, Home Affairs Editor - 30 Apr 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9237358/Sec ret-justice-may-be-needed-to-hear-important-drone-case-judge-suggests. html?
Mr Justice Mitting has raised the prospect that a case being brought against the Foreign Office by the son of a drone strike victim could only be heard behind closed doors, because of the national security implications.
He has made a rare order that a two-day High Court hearing must take place in which both sides tackle the issue of whether the full case could go ahead in public, or whether it would require a Closed Material Procedure.
If it is decided that the procedure would be necessary, it could be seen as a boost to the controversial Government policy, which is intended to ensure court cases can go ahead without undermining the security services and anti-terrorism policies.....

[TonyGosling]

Bilderberger Ken Clarke's diabolical injustice will protect criminal officials

More on this year's Bilderberg where Clarke was UK steering group rep.
Kissinger & Bilderberg global neo-Nazi protection racket
Tony Gosling rounds up after Bilderberg 2012, interviewed by Rick Wiles from Trunews.com (40mins)
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/60581
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=161241#161241
Bilderberg 2012 - Secret Rulers of the West (30mins)
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/60584

Climbdown over secret courts? Nonsense. Now it's even worse: How Ken Clarke's masterclass in spin hid REAL story about new justice laws
By David Rose – Daily Mail - 3 June 2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153754/Climbdown-secret-court s-Nonsense-Now-worse-How-Ken-Clarkes-masterclass-spin-hid-REAL-story-n ew-justice-laws.html
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke briefed reporters that his plans to allow courts to sit in secret had 'gone too far'
It looked like a Government U-turn last Monday when Justice Secretary Ken Clarke briefed reporters that his plans to allow courts to sit in secret had ‘gone too far’ and promised, as one front-page headline put it, they would be ‘rowed back’.
That was the spin. But the following morning, when Mr Clarke’s Ministry published the text of his Justice and Security Bill, the truth became clear.
In reality, the Government had made just one important concession: dropping its original intention that the new secret hearings would extend to inquests.
But, in every other respect, the Bill is draconian and will, if passed, introduce levels of secrecy quite without precedent.
Despite Mr Clarke’s soothing reassurances, this is the truth about the supposed ‘climbdown’:

- Ministers will be able to demand secret hearings in any civil court case where they claim airing evidence openly might ‘damage the interests of national security’.
- Theoretically, judges could reject such demands. But the Bill makes clear that in practice their role will be that of rubber stamps.
- In some types of case, Ministers will be able to shut down an action altogether if it has anything to do with an intelligence service, or if the Government claims it might damage ‘international relations’.

Senior Tory backbencher David Davis, a fierce opponent of the plans, said yesterday: ‘The way this was managed is typical of the Blair years. They chose a week when Parliament wasn’t sitting and successfully pre-spun the Bill with the media before it was even published.
‘Only when it was issued did it become apparent that it is still a corrosive attack on centuries of legal tradition and the rules of natural justice, with their basic principle that people must have the right to know what is alleged against them.’
So restrictive are the Bill’s proposals that one young woman whose family was ‘rendered’ to Libya has sent a letter – printed on this page – to Mr Clarke.
In it, she describes her horror when, aged 12, MI6 played a direct role in spiriting away her family in the night on a secret flight from China to detention in Libya.
Now she wants to know why the British Government is still trying to suppress the truth in court.
The main argument Mr Clarke used to justify the Bill also needs close scrutiny.
The turning point, he claimed in a newspaper article, came in 2010, with the payment of millions of pounds in damages to 12 men – all UK residents or citizens – who had been prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and were suing the Government for Britain’s alleged collusion in their torture and ill-treatment.
‘There is understandable public outrage when the Government is forced to spend significant sums settling cases which it believes it can win,’ he wrote.
If only he had been able to order a secret hearing, he suggested, the courts could have heard the full case against the men, and the damages would not have been paid.
But could the Government really have won the Guantanamo damages action, under any circumstances?
All of the men had already been cleared for release by US tribunals at Guantanamo, which heard every scrap of evidence against them – including the confessions of others obtained by torture.
Where on earth was Mr Clarke going to find a fresh ‘smoking gun’? Take Bisher al-Rawi. I spoke to him last week, more than five years after he first told his story in The Mail on Sunday on his release from Guantanamo.
Mr al-Rawi spent months in 2002 working closely with handlers from MI5 in an eventually successful effort to find the radical preacher Abu Qatada, who was then on the run – only to find himself betrayed by the very agency he had helped.
As only emerged much later, they sent a message to the Americans recommending he be abducted when he went on a business trip to the Gambia.
Detained and interrogated there on the grounds he was planning to set up a terrorist training camp in an African country he had not visited, he then spent five years in Guantanamo. And the critical evidence against him? His ‘association’ with Abu Qatada, whom he had only contacted at the behest of MI5.
Now married with two children, Mr al-Rawi has spent the period since his release rebuilding his life. ‘I try not to remember the pain of it. Some of it has gone, but not all,’ he said.
But one thing he is happy to remember vividly is the ‘mediation’ meeting which led to the damages settlement between the 12 former prisoners, their lawyers, and those representing the Government.

A girl who was abducted with her family and sent by MI6 on an ‘extraordinary rendition’ torture flight to Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya has made a personal plea to Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, urging him not to protect those responsible via the new Justice and Security Bill.
As The Mail on Sunday revealed last year, Khadeeja al-Saadi was just 12 when she was abducted in Hong Kong in 2004 with her mother, three siblings and her father Sami, a leading opponent of the Gaddafi regime.
All were detained, and her father suffered years of torture and was sentenced to death before finally being freed when the regime was toppled last year. The family, who had lived in London for many years, are now suing the British Government.
Documents found in Libya confirm that their rendition was only possible because MI6 lured them to Hong Kong on the pretext of an interview at the British Embassy.
Instead, they were seized by CIA agents at the airport and handed over to the brutal Libyan security service.
The Bill, published last week, would give the Government sweeping powers to ensure that any evidence about the role of the intelligence and security services is heard in secret.
In an attempt to change Mr Clarke’s mind, Khadeeja has written this letter, which his office confirmed he has received.

He said: ‘The Government team never gave any hint that they wished they could have been presenting some kind of secret defence. You could see they had no confidence they could win if it went to trial. Had they really thought they could, things would not have progressed as they did.’
His lawyers, led by solicitor Gareth Peirce, make a further point. When the Government – just a few months into the action – began to try to settle it, they had already disclosed about 1,000 documents. Of these, not one cast any doubt on the former prisoners’ case; in fact, each disclosure only strengthened it.
Mr al-Rawi said he didn’t mind that the full details of his case, and thus the identities of those to blame for his plight, had not come into the open: in some ways, not having to revisit his suffering had made life easier.
However, when documents were published by this newspaper showing that in 2004 MI6 also connived with Colonel Gaddafi’s intelligence service to ‘render’ his political opponents for torture in Libya, and the opponents in turn decided to sue the Government, he became excited.
‘I thought: here at last is just one story which will be fully told. Let’s find out what the heck was really happening: who was responsible, who was making the decisions.’
Instead, if the Bill becomes law, the cases brought by the Libyan victims of rendition will either be held in secret, or stop dead in their tracks.
Yesterday former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord Macdonald said: ‘The improvements do not go nearly far enough.
‘The Bill means that for the security services, no matter how strong the evidence of wrongdoing, it will be suppressed. That is bad for them, and bad for the rule of law.’
How distant David Cameron’s promises on taking office two years ago now seem. Allegations that UK services had been involved in torture had ‘overshadowed’ their reputation, he said then, and it was time ‘to clear up this matter once and for all’.
Foreign Secretary William Hague added that Britain’s involvement in torture meant the country was not as effective as it should be ‘in dealing with a world marred by tyranny, oppression and injustice’.
Then, their solution was a public inquiry. That was cancelled months ago, when the MI6 Libya rendition documents were discovered.
Now, with Mr Clarke’s Bill, the last available means of letting in the daylight is about to be shut down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153754/Climbdown-secret-court s-Nonsense-Now-worse-How-Ken-Clarkes-masterclass-spin-hid-REAL-story-n ew-justice-laws.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[TonyGosling]

Yesterday Andrew Tyrie MP was mentioned in the Observer:-
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/17/justice-security-b ill-secret-courts

The justice and security bill is a chilling affront to British justice

Secret courts should have no place within our judicial system
-
Previously:-
-
ref.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/jan/28/andrew-tyrie-secret-courts-b ill

Tory MP Andrew Tyrie attacks secret courts bill

Backbencher warns that government is in danger of 'closing down access to the truth'

Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
The Guardian,
Monday 28 January 2013
-
-
Therein it says:-
-
In a damaging attack on the justice and security bill, which reaches a crucial parliamentary stage this week, the influential Tory backbencher Andrew Tyrie warns that the government is in danger of "closing down access to the truth".
-
I agree 100% with this.

What is being proposed by Ken Clarke QC MP is the implementation of a view expressed by Jacob Rees-Mogg MP on the 4th Nov 2010 in the local weekly Somerset Guardian.......and under the heading...When security is at odds with Liberty.
see Appendix -1
-
In my opinion both Ken Clarke and Jacob-R-M need to think again before it is too late.... because they wont get away with it.
-
Their problem for the Tory Party is that the Iraq Inquiry needs to have been restarted forthwith,.....
And so as to come up with the pre-agreed report (Warwick Rules).
It then all be rubber stamped and forgotten....

All of this well before the next general election, that is now less than 27 months away.
-
It is impossible for that to happen now.
Their problem is that towards the end of 2009 a process had to be started to stall the Iraq Inquiry.
-
The full story was about to come out of the bag as to why we had to go to war in Iraq in 2003.
It was to try to get back some nukes that we had lost...

.see Appendix -2 entitled :-
..Dr. David .....Kelly's Fatal Secret.
-
On 25th May 2009....
North Korea exploded one of the nukes the Tories lost back in 1991,

Gordon Brown as UK PM insisted that there be an Iraq Inquiry.
-
Les than one month later...
Sir Menzies Campbell QC MP asked in Parliament:-
-
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090624/de btext/90624-0012.htm
Hansard for 24 Jun 2009 : Column 846
Was the Cabinet informed that the 45-minute claim related only to battlefield nuclear weapons?
-
There was a risk for the Tory Party in 1992 that the scandal of the lost nukes might come out at the time of the Matrix-Churchill trial..
-
Then the star witness for the defence was going to be Gerald James , Chairman of the Astra Group.
However Alan Clark MP went to the Court and changed his witness statement, causing the Matrix- Churchill trial to collapse.
-
Gerald James had documents in his brief case that showed his co-director in Astra, the late Stephan Kock , had involved Astra in a shady covert offshore arms deal
It had been set-up via Peter Lilley of the DTI , and using the contracts branch of MoD-PE at Sloane Sq., London.
Dr. David Kelly was the named MoD / DTI overseer for the merchandise from source at Pelindaba in South Africa.....via Durban....to Oman..
...and just before the start of the first Gulf War.
-
Gerald later wrote a book on it....In The Public interest.
It was only very recently that Gerald learned that each item of merchandise, officially described as 'cylinder' was in fact an atomic bomb.
-

An attempt was made to avert the problem of DTI / MoD documents being produced in Court at the Matrix-Churchill trial.,

Senior Government ministers with a vested personal interests signed Public Information Immunity (PII) certificates.
-
Most important of these signatories was the-then Home Secretary......Ken Clarke QC MP.
-
Another was the DPM Michael Heseltine MP, who was also President of the Board of Trade (ie head of the DTI).
-
Ironically on the subject of those PIIs.
In his book....Life in the Jungle....on page 448, Heseltine later wrote:-
-
....I explained my position at length and under detailed cross-examination on the Newsnight programme on BBC-2.
It made not a blind bit of difference. From the heavyweight commentators , such as Lord Rees-Mogg, down to the usual Fleet Street rabble the lies were repeated and repeated. There was no protection for ministers.....
-
The Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) process was used for the UK Government to buy those three 'cylinders' after delivery to Oman.
For that to happen, prior verification was needed of the goods being immediately available at source.
-
That verification was done in summer 1989
Then Armscor of South Africa via SNI-Westminster, paid for David Cameron (then 24), and two others to go there,
The other two being Kenneth Warren MP, aero engineer and Chairman of the House of Commons select committee for Trade & Industry,
....and Dr. David Kelly.:-
-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-camerons-freebi e-to-apartheid-south-africa-1674367.html
Cameron's freebie to apartheid South Africa
By Jane Merrick and James Hanning
Sunday, 26 April 2009
-
Why did they do it.........money.
Gross over-billing by Astra on the MoD allowed a colossal payout by the Bank of England direct to Astra.:-
1.
£17.8 millions from that BofE payout was laundered into 1992 Tory Party election campaign coffers.
see Hansard for 22nd June 1993 and starting Col. 197.
Incidentally Lord McAlpine was the 1992 election campaign fundraiser.
Campaign manager for 1992 was Chris Patten.
More recently and under another heading Patten has been seen to be Lord McAlpine's recent Lord Protector at the BBC.
2.
a group of private investors each to collect handsomely from the BofE payout to Astra after the three 'cylinders' had been delivered to Oman.
Their cash had been need to buy the three 'cylinders' from the Afrikaners at Durban docks before the three 'cylinders' could be shipped to Oman.
-
The bottom line in all of this now is that ....under UK Health & Safety Legislation....each of us has a Duty of Care.
There are still two more of those nukes unaccounted for, and that may still go-off?
-
Also the extreme Jail provisions as contained in the....Nuclear Explosions Act (1998) are now highly relevant.
They are there to encourage anyone who knows anything about the lost nukes to tell UK Intelligence before one goes off......and as happened on 25th May 2009.

[ian neal]

Is this the end of the principle that no one is above the law? The government are currently pushing drastic changes to our justice system through parliament, which would allow trials to take place in secret. If they’re successful, it could mean serious abuses like torture, or detention without trial, never come to light. [1] This would make government cover ups much easier, and make it much harder to get a truly fair trial.

Your MP could be voting on secret courts as early as the 25th February. And it looks like the vote could be very close. There’s already been a massive rebellion in the House of Lords, key Liberal Democrats, Labour and top Conservatives have all spoken out against the government's plans. [2] With some pressure from us, their voters, we might just persuade enough MPs to stop this attack on British justice.

Time is running out to stop these changes. Click here to email your MP to stand up for justice and vote against secret courts now:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/secret-courts

Of course, the state has an interest in keeping the cases against it quiet. From Iraqi torture claims against the Ministry of Defence to the long-running cover-up of the Hillsborough disaster, and from the silence over the Jimmy Savile abuse allegations to phone-hacking at News International, it’s clear that when things aren’t out in the open abuse is more likely. [3]

But the government’s proposals are more than simply a way to dodge responsibility. Our British legal system isn’t flawless - but these new measures are an attack on its founding principles. Secret courts have no place in a truly just legal system. Email your MP now to make sure they vote the right way:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/secret-courts

[TonyGosling]

The justice and security bill is a chilling affront to British justice

Secret courts should have no place within our judicial system
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/17/justice-security-b ill-secret-courts
Henry Porter - The Observer, Sunday 17 February 2013

It pays to ask a simple question when confronted with a piece of legislation such as the justice and security bill, which has become so complicated that probably no more than 100 people in the country fully understand it.

Outside parliament, there is a dim sense that the bill will introduce closed material procedures – secret courts – into English civil law in cases where national security is said to be at stake. People are beginning to appreciate that this means a claimant is banned from knowing anything about their case and that this in turn will make it easier for ministers and the intelligence agencies to cover up wrongdoing, such as rendition and torture.

But that is about the limit of public awareness.

After a few days of working out where the legislation stood, who supported which obscure amendment and what chance this writhing monstrosity had of becoming law, I asked the simple question: where did the bill come from? After all, it wasn't in the Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifestos. It wasn't part of the coalition agreement and clearly there is no public demand for it. Indeed, those who do know about the bill regard it as a shocking offence to open justice – the principle that cases are heard and decided in public – and natural justice, where a person can expect to see the evidence presented by the other party and receive a fair hearing. This is not us, they say. This is Kafka and Stalinism, not Britain.

So where did it come from? The answer is simple. The bill is the idea of the very people it will most benefit – the intelligence services, civil servants and government ministers – which is why they are lobbying like hell for it.

This fact alone is enough to tell you that there should be no compromise on the traditions of English common law and that the justice and security bill should be killed off. As secret hearings and their priesthood of special advocates move from limited-use immigration courts to threaten our civil law courts, we can be sure that it won't stop there. Secrecy is habit-forming.

A vote in the Commons is expected in weeks and it's clear we have reached an important moment in the life of the coalition, which may be equal in principle to the attempt to introduce 42-day detention without charge, which Gordon Brown was forced to abandon. So we can expect to see the same plausible briefing of MPs about the need to preserve the integrity of our allies' intelligence. We will hear much bellyaching about a situation in which the government, rather than risking sensitive evidence in open court, is forced to pay out vast compensation to people who have had the temerity to allege the UK's compliance in their torture. And you will see much steam emanate from the former justice secretary Kenneth Clarke, as he insists – without irony – that his bill is reasonable and proportionate and that justice is served by secrecy, rather than diminished by it.

I know you'd like to believe him – I would too – but don't. Justice is never served by secret courts, neither in Beijing, nor here.

Let's not forget how we got here in the first place. After a series of explicit denials, most notably from Jack Straw, the Labour government had to admit the truth that British intelligence services were complicit in rendition and torture during the war on terror. That is why the security establishment wants courts where the assurances of the officials and politicians will be much harder to test and embarrassing evidence will never see the light of the day.

The bill drew a great deal of criticism from peers and MPs on a joint human rights committee. They were worried about the lack of safeguards against abuse and were not assured that ministers had made a convincing argument for secrecy. A number of sensible amendments were suggested by the Lords, which gave judges more power to weigh the interest of justice against national security and, crucially, allowed the claimant to apply for a secret hearing to prise information from the intelligence services. In other words, they went some way to introducing a two-way street.

But most of these amendments were thrown out or neutralised with the help of the Democratic Unionist party's Ian Paisley Junior in a Commons committee two weeks ago, which, incidentally, went largely unnoticed by the media because of the vote on gay marriage on the same day. The principle that secret hearings would be the last resort after every avenue had been exhausted, including the use of public interest immunity, has been abandoned. And naturally the idea that a claimant could use closed material procedure to winkle out information from the intelligence services horrified the spies' lawyers. That amendment was duly nailed. So the benefits of secrecy are to be reserved for the state.

As a Centre for Policy Studies book by the influential Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie and QC Anthony Peto explains, national security can be used to apply secrecy to cases that have nothing to do with torture and do not, in reality, jeopardise national security. Closed material procedures could be ordered to limit legitimate protests, to hamper inquiries by journalists, to prevent people from recovering property seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act and to stop wounded servicemen from suing the Ministry of Defence for faulty equipment. Special advocates would be used to represent claimants who would never be allowed to know why their cases failed or succeeded.

The justice and security bill has a Blair-era hallmark. It is disproportionate and unnecessary, which is probably why it appeals to Jack Straw, who still faces embarrassing questions on torture and rendition that took place on his watch.

But in all this there is mystery. The bill has been devised under a coalition government that includes Liberal Democrats, whose conference overwhelmingly voted against the measure. It is difficult to see how Lib Dem MPs could vote for a bill that restricts rights under the law, at the same time as increasing state power. The justice and security bill is self-evidently against everything they stand for, which may explain recent confusing signals from the party and why a Lib Dem voted against Tory amendments in committee.

Despite Clarke's spin that the bill mostly conforms to the Lords amendments, it is plain that it has reverted to its original objectionable form. As the campaigning Tory David Davis says, if the Lib Dems can't vote against the justice and security bill, what on earth is the party for? The vast majority of the party know, but do their MPs know and does Nick Clegg?

[TonyGosling]

Secret court bill 'threatens centuries of open justice and will erode Britain's moral standing in the world'
Paper by senior Tory MP Andrew Tyrie calls on government to rewrite its plans

By Tim Shipman http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269332/Secret-court-threatens -centuries-open-justice-erode-Britains-moral-standing-world.html
PUBLISHED: 01:22, 28 January 2013 | UPDATED: 01:23, 28 January 2013



Plans for secret courts to be voted on by MPs today will undermine centuries of open justice and erode Britain’s moral standing in the world, according to a hard-hitting new report.

A paper by senior Tory MP Andrew Tyrie - a campaigner on human rights - and leading QC Anthony Peto, calls on the government to rewrite its plans to hold court cases covering national security behind closed doors.

Cabinet Minister Ken Clarke has watered down the controversial Justice and Security Bill following a series of humiliating defeats in the House of Lords.


A paper by Tory MP Andrew Tyrie (pictured) - a campaigner on human rights - and leading QC Anthony Peto, calls on the government to rewrite its plans to hold court cases covering national security behind closed doors

But ministers are still facing a rebellion despite attempts to buy off Liberal Democrat MPs opposed to secret justice.

And today Mr Tyrie publishes a report for the Centre for Policy Studies think tank branding the plans ‘neither just nor secure’ and arguing that they need to be ‘substantially rewritten’.

He said plans to hold civil court hearings on whether British spies colluded in torture will lead to a cover up of the dark side of the war on terror.

‘The Government must make major changes to the Justice and Security Bill or risk prejudicing both Britain’s system of open justice and our moral standing in the world,’ the report says.

The Daily Mail has led criticism of plans to allow secret courts, under which civil cases would be conducted entirely in private.

Ministers claim they need to hold some cases behind closed doors so that judges can hear evidence on intelligence matters.

The Government has paid millions of pounds to terror suspects who accuse it of complicity in torture and rendition, after ministers said it was impossible to defend such claims without releasing secret material.

But under the plans for ‘closed material proceedings’ defendants or claimants will not allowed to be present, know or challenge the case against them and must be represented by a security-cleared advocate, rather than their own lawyer.

The new report says: ‘That Britain allowed itself to be dragged into complicity in extraordinary rendition - the kidnap and torture of individuals as a matter of policy - is a disgrace.

'That, nearly a decade later, the extent and limits of Britain’s involvement are still unknown is almost as shocking.

‘Far from bolstering that confidence, the Justice and Security Bill... would weaken it.

'The effect of the Government’s proposals would make it more difficult to establish the truth about Britain’s complicity in kidnap and torture. The Bill would provide a route neither more just nor more secure.’

The report calls for new rules which would mean summaries of the national security sensitive information be provided to the excluded party and his or her legal representatives.

It demands a five year sunset clause, which would force Parliament to reconsider how the secret courts are operating in the next Parliament.

The report warns that MPs must also stand firm to oppose the removal of the courts’ power to hear applications which seek the disclosure of information held by UK authorities, in cases deemed to be “sensitive”.

This was the principle used by detainee Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers when he was contesting charges that could have resulted in the death penalty.

‘Removing it will make it harder to uncover official wrongdoing in matters such as extraordinary rendition,’ the report argues.

And Mr Tyrie also argues that Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee be given far more powers to hold the security services to account.

At present it reports to the Prime Minister and was widely derided for failing to get to grips with MI5 and MI6’s knowledge of rendition.

He said: ‘The title of the Bill is classic doublespeak; it brings us neither more justice nor greater security.

To agree only to the amendments suggested by the Lords is not going far enough, as the Lords simply did not have the time to put all their concerns over this Bill in the form of amendments.’

A government source said Mr Clarke had bowed to concerns raised by the Lords and by Parliament’s Joint Human Rights Committee (JCHR).

The source said: ‘The Bill is being substantially rewritten to accommodate the Lib Dems and clauses have been rewritten to achieve what the JCHR wanted.’

[TonyGosling]

[TonyGosling]

here may be why Ken is so keen on secret courts?

KENGATE: Prime Minister David Cameron personally implicated in scandal?
Saturday, May 11, 2013 9:30
http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2013/05/kengate-prime-minister-david -cameron-personally-implicated-in-scandal-2517420.html

David Cameron disappears Kengate Tapes whilst Head of Corporate Communications for Carlton Television during the “Cash for Questions” scandal back in 1994. Will he be above the law as well?

The Metropolitan Police Paedophile Unit confirmed this week to me personally that there was indeed a government and Carlton Television conspiracy over the Kengate Tapes. The police confirmed that Ian Greer along with Carlton Television conspired to cover up the “Cash for Questions” scandal for John Major’s government back in 1994. So the Prime Minster David Cameron covered up a scandal of paedophilia in 1994 as a corporate “sleaze fixer” for Carlton Television, on behalf of John Major’s Conservative Government, through Ian Greer. Now as Prime Minister, David Cameron is preventing the Metropolitan Police from investigating my case against Kenneth Clarke MP, who was involved in the scandal of sexually assaulting me in Ian Greer’s office, which Cameron helped cover up!

Okay, let’s just take a breath…
A number of political scandals in the 1980s and 1990s created the impression of what was described in the British press as “sleaze”: a perception that the then Conservative Government was associated with political corruption and hypocrisy. In particular, the successful entrapment of Graham Riddick and David Tredinnick in the “Cash for Questions” scandal of 1994, the contemporaneous misconduct as ministers by Neil Hamilton, Tim Smith, and the convictions of former Cabinet Member Jonathan Aitken and former party deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer for perjury in two separate cases leading to custodial sentences damaged the Conservatives’ public reputation. Persistent rumours about the activities of the party treasurer Michael Ashcroft furthered this impression. At the same time, a series of revelations about the private lives of various Conservative politicians such as Hague, Portillo, etc, etc., made the headlines. Scallywag Magazine even accused Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile. However the investigation was stopped but McAlpine didn’t sue Scallywag Magazine as they had photographic evidence apparently which then subsequently disappeared. See the pattern? Paedophile rings all operate in the same way.

Kenneth Clarke MP who is above the law according to the Metropolitan Police

Detective Constable Ben Lambskin of the Met Police’s Paedophile Unit told me that Central Television had been bought by Carlton Television in order to shut down the Cook Report and control the now infamous Kengate Tapes. DC Lambskin said, “The possible location for the tapes is that it was taken away by a Carlton Television lawyer who was dealing with the Cook Report and that was the last time it was seen” However I have discovered that the lawyer who took the tapes was indeed operating under the direct orders of our now Prime Minister David Cameron.

Is it possible that in order to protect the Major Government from a scandal of both parliamentary corruption and paedophilia at the heart of government David Cameron, then working at Carlton Television, conspired to mislead the British public, hide evidence that is in the public interest and pervert the course of justice in order to protect paedophiles by disappearing the Kengate Tapes. David Cameron was rewarded by being made Prime Minister nominated at Bilderberg by, now Minister Without Portfolio and Chairman of the Bilderberg Steering Committee – Kenneth Clarke MP. In fact this year Kenneth Clarke MP is taking Prime Minister David Cameron to Bilderberg.


We know that Kenneth Clarke MP was in Ian Greer’s office because of the Kengate Tapes. Clarke joked that he was there so often Greer should put a parliamentary bell in his office, so he’d know when it was time to go and vote.

So now it starts to become clear how far reaching the Kengate scandal goes. It appears that the paedophile ring in Westminster is now also connected to the monarchy by Prince Charles, who had a close and intimate relationship with Jimmy Savile. Of course, if Kenneth Clarke cannot be spoken to by the Police then Prince Charles isn’t going to be spoken to about what exactly his relationship with Savile was. We know now that – “your lovely ladies in Scotland” in a note Prince Charles wrote to Jimmy Savile was actually referring to children.

The Palace is speeding up plans for the Queen to abdicate within the next few months in order to make Charles King to protect him against the Savile scandal. Originally it was planned for the Queen to abdicate before the unveiling of the Ministry of Defence’s release of the World War 2 records of the Royal’s connection to the Nazis. However, the Queen has to allow the Police to question Prince Charles now in order to keep up the pretence of democracy.

On an even more serious note; there is no separation of government and monarch if the Prime Minster is a direct relation to HRH Queen Elizabeth II, which David Cameron is. The fact that the Queen sat in on a cabinet meeting last year was indication enough of the lack of separation. So we’re not living in the democracy we thought, if the Queen can pick up the telephone to the Prime Minister and have her wishes enacted by her relative, the Prime Minister David Cameron.

HRH Prince Charles has questions to answer over the Jimmy Savile scandle

We know that HRH Prince Charles was friends with known paedophile Jimmy Savile. In fact Jimmy Savile was the Prince’s unofficial social secretary. We also know that last year for the Queen’s Jubilee Celebrations the Royals invited a known convicted paedophile onto their Thames Barge. We know that Kenneth Clarke allowed Jimmy Savile access to Broadmoor, by literally giving him a set of keys to enter the maximum security prison, in order for Savile to abuse patients and associate with imprisoned paedophiles and serial killers. Kenneth Clarke and David Cameron are obviously connected to Ian Greer as Ian Greer Associates had Carlton Television, where David Cameron was Head of Communications, as a major client in the 1990s.

So for the circle to be complete how is Prime Minister David Cameron connected to Prince Charles?

Well, it’s very simple if we understand who David Cameron is. David Cameron, is related to the Queen. He is the first Eton-educated Conservative leader since Sir Alec Douglas-Home in the early 1960s. David Cameron, Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry are all members of ‘Whites’ a private members gentlemen’s club in Mayfair – they get a family discount I guess!

David Cameron’s headmaster at Eton was Eric Anderson, who had also been Tony Blair’s housemaster at Fettes Public School, which is dubbed the Scottish Eton. After University Cameron’s first job was in the Conservative Research Department. He progressed quickly through the ranks and was soon briefing ministers such as Kenneth Clarke etc. for their media appearances. He worked with David Davis on the team briefing John Major for Prime Minister’s Questions, and also hooked up with George Osborne, who would go on to be shadow chancellor and his leadership campaign manager.

Cameron spent seven years at Carlton, as Head of Corporate Communications, travelling the world with the firm’s boss Michael Green. But Mr Cameron’s period at Carlton is not remembered so fondly by some of the journalists who had to deal with him. Jeff Randall, writing in The Daily Telegraph where he is a senior executive, said he would not trust Mr Cameron “with my daughter’s pocket money”. “To describe Cameron’s approach to corporate PR as unhelpful and evasive overstates by a widish margin the clarity and plain-speaking that he brought to the job of being Michael Green’s mouthpiece,” wrote the ex-BBC business editor. “In my experience, Cameron never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative, which probably makes him perfectly suited for the role he now seeks: the next Tony Blair,” Mr Randall wrote. The Sun newspaper’s Business Editor Ian King, recalling the same era, described Mr Cameron as a “poisonous, slippery individual”.

Prime Minster David Cameron needs to answer questions regarding his direct involvement in the Kengate Tapes disappearance, the purchasing of Central Television by Carlton which he oversaw and why is he protecting what appears to be the lead players in an elite paedophile circle.

So all we need to do now is take bets on which “Clarkian” response he will give to these allegations.

A) I have no recollection of those events, what tapes? Etc, etc,.

or

B) It wasn’t me. They made me do it. I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement. It’s not my fault. I’ll have to look in to it. It a case of mistaken identity.

What is clear is that the Kengate scandal, whilst perhaps having a small seemingly insignificant start, is set to rock the very foundations of our society as the breakdown of this corrupt civilisation goes to the heart of government. To say what’s happening is biblical is an understatement!

What will the Police do now? Will they be investigating and talking to Prime Minister David Cameron about his involvement in hiding the truth from the British public which was in their interest to know? What will Parliament do now?

There needs to be a General Election. Prime Minister David Cameron’s position is untenable. He needs to do the honourable thing and resign his post in order for an investigation into his personal involvement with the disappearances of the Kengate tapes and the obvious paedophile ring involving politicians and members of the Royal Family to be investigated.



Paedophile Jimmy Savile

It is clear that Prince Charles, Jimmy Savile, Kenneth Clarke MP and Prime Minister David Cameron are simply the Heads of Department for the paedophile ring and it obviously involves many more people. We now know for a fact that it involves Parliament, the Royal Family, the entertainment industry and the Metropolitan Police who are all involved in protecting paedophiles, procuring children for paedophiles or being paedophiles.

When is enough, enough?

This whole situation can easily be resolved. It’s just about the Kengate tapes and there whereabouts? Find the tapes and this matter will be cleared up once and for all. The very fact that the tapes have been disappeared and the person in Carlton Television who did it just so happens to be now Prime Minister David Cameron who conducted a billion pound corporate takeover of Central Television in order to get hold of the tapes in the first place, speaks for itself.

It appears that David Cameron becoming Prime Minister was a reward by the Bilderberg elite for covering up the paedophile and “Cash for Questions” scandal in the 1990's.

If once you’ve read this and you still think you live in a democracy…wake up and welcome to the real world.

I’ll leave you with a final word from Detective Constable Ben Lambskin of the Metropolitan Police Paedophile Unit, in attempting to explain the disappearance of the Kengate Tapes, he said “You wouldn’t want that kind of thing out there” .

[TonyGosling]

Breeding resentment
The government's persecution of the Muslim community is alienating the very people whose support is needed to stop further atrocities.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/21/breedingresentmen t

Paul Donovan

Thursday 21 June 2007 07.00 BST
Last modified on Friday 3 October 2014 10.39 BST
The government's long-running effort to deport a number of Algerian terror suspects back to Algeria on the basis of diplomatic assurances should reach a seminal moment this week as the case of Mustafa Taleb, known publicly as Y, comes before the court of appeal.

Taleb had fled Algeria in fear for his life in the 1990s and been granted full refugee status in the UK. After that he worked in a bookshop. He came to public notice post 9/11 as one of those arrested and charged in relation to what became known as the ricin trial where no ricin was found. In April 2005 Taleb was one of four Algerians acquitted of all charges by the jury.

Following the London bombings Taleb and the three others were among those picked up again and served with deportation notices as a threat to national security. They were initially imprisoned before later being released on deportation bail, which meant being subject to control order style detention.

Last August, Taleb's appeal to the special immigration appeals commission (SIAC) was turned down and he was sent back to prison pending deportation to Algeria. Previously, Siac had ruled that Algeria was not a safe country to which to return. However, this ruling changed when it was decided that Taleb could return on the basis of assurances given to Tony Blair by the Algerian government that "no torture, no ill-treatment" would take place. The bar had been reduced even further as to the assurances required on safety for those returning.

Since the decision on Taleb, four other Algerians have returned to Algeria, two being immediately detained and charged. They now await trial. One of the men, known as H, is being held in Serkadji Prison, Algiers. He reported hearing the screams of people being tortured in other cells and had heard the cries of pain from a woman being "stretched" in a cell near him. He then saw the guards carrying the woman unconscious past his cell.

The wider question that arises though regards whether what the government has done since 9/11 has been effective in deterring terrorism or whether it has made life more dangerous.

There seems little doubt that there is a small group of foreign nationals that the government, advised by the security services, has been targeting and continually coming back to since December 2001. Mainly Algerian, 10 of these men were originally detained without trial under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act (ATCSA). They were then put under control orders following the House of Lords 2004 decision that detention power under ATCSA was incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
Advertisement


Following the London bombings, this group, despite having some of the best alibis in the land, having been under control orders at the time, were picked up and interned in prison. They were served deportation notices saying they were a threat to national security. Also at this time the group were joined by those, including Taleb and others, who had a few months earlier been cleared of any wrongdoing in the ricin trial.

This group of "suspect" individuals has effectively become what solicitor Gareth Peirce has described as the guinea pigs. "The continuing experiment is dangerous and insidious in more than one way. It has become very clear that when one challenge is overcome the goal posts are moved and a new system comes in," said Peirce.

Amnesty International believe that the measures taken by the government in the name of the war on terror have undermined the rule of law at home and damaged Britain's reputation overseas. "Counter-terrorism policies have ridden roughshod over some of the most basic human rights: the rights to liberty and to a fair trial," said John Watson, Scotland director for Amnesty International.

Unfortunately as time passes little attention is paid to the plight of these men and others who are being routinely picked up while the alienation of many in the Muslim community continues to grow daily.

As the debate moves on to the safety or otherwise of deporting people to torturing countries or the effectiveness or otherwise of control orders, what is being lost is the debate over this basic abrogation of the rule of law that the present arrangements represent. The long-forgotten question is why, if these people are so dangerous, are they not brought before a fully accredited court of law to answer charges?

A Kafkesque system has been created whereby people can be detained, seemingly indefinitely, on the basis of intelligence that they or their representatives have not seen or been able to question. Crucial questions as to how this information was obtained, whether money changed hands etc can never be tested in the public arena.

Instead of questioning this situation the government-manipulated agenda moves on to the need for ever more legislation aimed at reducing citizens rights even further on the altar of the need to provide security.

The worry at present is that everything that is happening to persecute the Muslim community is simply alienating the very people whose support is needed to stop further terrorist atrocities. Peirce draws parallels with what happened in Northern Ireland where those in the suspect community completely lost belief in the operation of the rule of law and so were more likely to move toward violent confrontation.

US based lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has drawn parallels between what has gone on in Guantánamo Bay, where he represents a number of clients, and the regime of detention built up in the UK. He said:

"The US and UK governments are seeking to answer the wrong question so get the wrong answer. The focus is on how to stop individuals who might commit a crime in the future. The operation of Guantánamo and Belmarsh means we are jettisoning the values we are supposed to be protecting. This is radicalising thousands ... Enforcing human rights is the best way to confront terrorism."

The operation of the present system is not only imposing appalling injustice on a growing number of people in the UK but also building resentment for the future. It makes no sense from a humanitarian or security based perspective. What is needed is a return to a more accountable system of justice, enforcing human rights and seeking to bring to justice those who might seek to commit terrorist acts in the UK.