Militant blog by a UK political dissident

Reacting to Jack Straw's announcement today that the government would abandon plans to hold coroners' inquests in secret without juries, Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock said:

'This is a welcome victory for those who believe that coroners' inquests should not be conducted in secret on the say-so of the government.

'When someone loses their life at the hands of the state, it's essential - and required by international law - that an independent and impartial inquiry finds out how and why it happened.

'However it's worrying that the government may still try to keep families and the public in the dark by using the Inquiries Act 2005.

'Under the Inquiries Act the government can control who sits on an inquiry, it can order part of the inquiry to be held in private and it can decide which of the findings are published and which remain secret.

'If secret inquests are dropped but replaced by secret inquiries, this 'climbdown' may do little to increase government transparency. The Inquiries Act should go the same way as the proposals for secret coroners inquests - it should be scrapped.'

Guardian source

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, has abandoned his plans to hold parts of inquests in secret and without a jury on the grounds of national security.

The controversial proposal could have been used in cases such as the friendly-fire deaths of British servicemen in Iraq and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. It was due to go before the House of Lords on Monday.

But in a Commons statement today Straw admitted defeat, saying that the idea of secret inquests in front of a specially selected coroner still did not command the necessary cross-party support to get it on to the statute book.

The climbdown is a fresh humiliation over the issue for the justice secretary because he was initially forced to drop it from last year's counter-terrorism bill amid the parliamentary battle over increasing to 42 days the limit on detention without charge of terror suspects.

The inquest proposal was greeted by a fresh wave of criticism when he reintroduced it in the House of Commons in January. He was forced to make concessions in March with the final decision on whether an inquest went ahead in secret handed over from the justice secretary to a high court judge.

Straw has now acknowledged that this has failed to satisfy his critics – who in the past have included a former lord chief justice and two former attorneys general – and it is unlikely to get through the House of Lords. Straw said: "Following further discussions in the house and with interested parties it is clear the provisions still do not command the necessary cross-party support."

The government will propose to delete clauses 11 and 12 in the coroners and justice bill when it comes before the Lords next week. This means also dropping a proposal to modify the blanket ban on intercept evidence to allow its use in special inquests. The deletions follow meetings with human rights organisations Inquest and Liberty, as well as the main political parties.

The justice secretary insisted that the secrecy provision was still needed to deal with "some rare but very important cases" where there may be highly sensitive information directly relevant to the circumstances of the death that could not be made public in any way.

"The government felt that these changes struck a fair and proportionate balance between the interests of bereaved families, the need to protect sensitive material and judicial oversight of the whole process," Straw said.

Instead, the government is to consider holding an official inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 in any case where national security means it is not possible to hold an open public inquest. "As with the provisions in respect of the certification of coroners' investigations, we would expect to resort to such a procedure only in very exceptional and rare circumstances," said Straw.

The original proposal attracted strong criticism from Labour MPs representing the families of British servicemen killed in Iraq from American friendly fire, who felt the measure would mean them being excluded from crucial parts of the inquests into their deaths.

Liberty's Shami Chakrabarti described Straw's decision as a sane and humble climbdown. "It was completely bizarre for a government that has spent over a decade lecturing the public about victims' rights to attempt to exclude bereaved families from open justice," she said.

"Secret courts and parallel legal systems have mushroomed under New Labour but as we have learned in recent days there is no accountability without transparency."

But David Howarth, the Liberal Democrats' justice spokesman, raised questions said the proposed alternative of holding official inquiries was unsatisfactory "because presumably these inquires will be held by judges without juries".

"Jack Straw must not sideline juries," Howarth said.

"Public confidence in investigating deaths at the hands of the state will not be maintained without the degree of public participation in the process that a jury brings."

14/11/09 Jack Straw on this blog

On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

• Saturday, May 16, 2009 - Evil Fascist shit Jack Straw

About Me

Recent Posts

Links