Liberal Democrats have successfully scaled back plans to hold more court hearings in secret.

Last month Nick Clegg said the proposals in the Justice and Security Green Paper did not strike the right balance, and in the Bill published this week, all of the conditions he set out have been met. The FT said the changes gave the paper ‘more confidence’ and moved from opposing the proposals to backing them.

The changes mean:
Closed Material Procedures (or ‘secret courts’) will only ever be used as a last resort in cases of national security where secret evidence is so sensitive to the case that the current system of Public Interest Immunity makes it untriable.
Closed Material Procedures will never be used in inquests.
Closed Material Procedures will only ever be used after a judge, and not a politician, has looked at all the material and decided that one is warranted.
Importantly – CMPs will be used in civil (not criminal) cases and only in parts of a trial where evidence has to be considered by only a Judge and Special Advocate for national security reasons, never for material that could be heard in an open court.

Nick Clegg’s intervention has ensured that the principle of open justice is preserved in every case possible and that CMPs are only ever used where a case could otherwise not be heard.

The Bill strengthens the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee – something which Liberal Democrats have long called for. The ISC will have additional investigative powers and resources to hold the intelligence agencies to account, and a new status to bring it closer to Parliament.

Remember, Liberal Democrats have ensured that the Coalition Government has:

Repealed the introduction of expensive ID cards
Scrapped the storage of innocent people’s profiles on the DNA database.
Reduced the maximum detention period to 14 days from 28
Introduced the Freedom Bill to reclaim civil liberties
Scrapped control orders and ended internal exile
Ended child detention
Introduced safeguards to stop CCTV and council snoopers got out of control

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