The Court of Appeal today decided to publish a paragraph of controversial criticism of the British Security Service contained in a draft judgment involving former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed.
Court lifts ban on edited Binyam Mohamed torture documents - Home News, UK - The IndependentThe ruling led to the release of a seven-paragraph summary of 42 classified CIA documents that were handed to MI5.
They show that MI5 was aware that Mr Mohamed was being continuously deprived of sleep, threatened with rendition and being subjected to "significant mental stress and suffering".
After seeing a draft version of Lord Neuberger's judgment - particularly paragraph 168 - Government lawyers took the view that he had unjustifiably gone further in his criticism than the other two judges.
Jonathan Sumption QC, wrote to the court on the Government's behalf warning that Lord Neuberger would be seen as saying the Security Service did not respect human rights and had failed to renounce participating in "coercive interrogation" techniques.
In his letter to the judges, Mr Sumption said Lord Neuberger's draft observations in backing the High Court decision went "well beyond" anything found by the court.
The QC said those observations constituted "an exceptionally damaging criticism of the good faith of the Security Service as a whole".
The suggestion that the court "should distrust any Government assurance based on the Service's advice and information" would unquestionably be cited in other cases.
If widely applied, it would "mark an unprecedented breakdown" in relations between the courts and the Government.
Mr Sumption said the Security Service "received no notice whatever of the court's intention to make such sweeping criticisms".
^^^^^^^^^^ Full article
Watch this space?
Too right! The courts aren't there to do whatever the government tells them. That's why we have separation of the legislative and the judiciary. It's not going to affect security and it's not in the public's interest to be lied to concerning interrogation tactics. If you're going to torture people, at least be honest about it!
The broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes... Adolf Hitler
well, its just nice to know that not all the judges in this country have been 'bought'.
then again, this could just be a campaign of dis-information (if thats even the right terminology to use).
i.e. giving the public what they want but in the end it amounts to nothing.
either way fuck it.
babylon must bun. and this is a step in the right direction.
moar fiyah!
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