Should the US be allowed to blackmail British judges into silence over their torture of detainee's?

[Didz]

It was revealed today that British judges are being blackmailed into silence when briefing juries in the trials of former British detainee's in US concentration camps. The judges are being told by the British government that they may not inform juries of the nature of torture sufferred by victims in US custody when summing up the evidence the juries should consider in the trials of the victims, because it would upset the US and result in them withdrawing their co-operation with Britain in combatting further terroist attacks on the UK.
The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband stated on Wednesday

that national security could be compromised if secret CIA documents detailing the interrogation of Binyam Mohamed were placed in the public domain. His comments came after the High Court refused to order the disclosure of a CIA dossier referring to the treatment of Mr Mohamed, 31, who was arrested as a terrorism suspect. It said that to do so would put the British public at risk because America had threatened to withdraw co-operation in terror cases.

In their ruling, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said:

they decided not to release the documents because Mr Miliband believed there was a "real risk" that the potential loss of intelligence co-operation would seriously increase the terror threat faced by the UK.

Opposition parties accused the Foreign Secretary of striking a "shabby and shady" deal with the White House. Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for foreign affairs, said the Government was trying to avoid embarrassing the US by covering up evidence of torture.

In terms of British justice, the Judges summing up at the end of the trial is supposed to provide the jury with a full review of the evidence and the legal issues it has raised in order that they are fully brieded and prepared to consider their verdict. In the past, error during a judges summing up have been cited as sufficient cause to squash a conviction, or to order a retrial.

Therefore, the deliberate ommission of vital evidence is almost certainly going to invaliadate the trials themselves. One wonder just how far British MP's are prepared to bend-over, when ordered to by the USA. It also makes one wonder how many British citisens US politician's are prepared to sacrifice to protect their own arses.

[Gaidin]

It's not a matter of whether the blackmail should be allowed. That's pretty unethical no matter how you look at it. The question is whether the judges will call the US's bluff regarding the blackmail material's release.

[Plan C]

You see, Didz, it's not just the matter of bending over backwards to please the White House.
Foreign Secretary's Office, MoD and MoJ have their hands just as dirty and are obviously unlikely to disclose the extent of their involvment in illegal interrogation techniques.

The whole "war on terrorism" affair is one of the most questionable, utterly misguided and disappointing chapters in British history in my view. British government has succeeded in making things worse, globally, than they were before. Much as our alliance with the USA is almost organic and natural I have to say that our position within it has been pathetically weak and New Labour government has done all to advance genuine British interests.

I think people are getting more disillusioned and bitter and angry by the day, although I do wonder how much it even matters these days...

[Didz]

It's not a matter of whether the blackmail should be allowed. That's pretty unethical no matter how you look at it. The question is whether the judges will call the US's bluff regarding the blackmail material's release.

And that in turn will depend on how effective Blairs reform of the Judiciary was in politizing the British judicial process. So, in that respect its a decent measure of how close we are to having a future British Hitler dictate the results of trials.

@Skielve: Not going to disagree with that, I agree entirely.

@danzig: Sorry, I honestly thought I'd posted the link to the source for the quotes, my bad. Also, I didn't notice the source I'd chosen was from Feb 2009, but the issue itself is ongoing and current. In fact, the reason I raised it was that it came up on the news. Presumably, the arguement is still going on.

Here's a more recent source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/de...e-appeal-court (Sunday 13 December 2009)

Efforts will be stepped up tomorrow to suppress evidence of British involvement in the unlawful treatment of a UK resident, Binyam Mohamed, who says he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan before being secretly rendered to Guantánamo Bay.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, is appealing against six high court judgments ruling that CIA information on Mohamed's treatment, and what MI5 and MI6 knew about it, must be disclosed.

The judges involved in the trial have said

"It was in our view difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters."

They added:

"Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials, or officials of another state, where the evidence was relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be".

Just about says it all really, so much for democracy and justice.

@Danzig To be strictly accurate its the British government who are blaming the USA, its their own spokemen who claim that the USA are blackmailing them into demanding the suppression of the the evidence. Were it not for them we would not even know that the US was involved in the issue.

[Phier]

Yes, yes we should.

And we would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling internet kids!

[danzig]

Source?

Actually Ill do it for you. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-1547648.html
Article is from nearly a year ago and claims misled not blackmail, id say chalk it up as we are even now for you guys releasing the Libyan guy Seriously dunno what you expect when reality meets procedure/law. Does it excuse it? No. Is it good that it happened? No but at the end of the day this is BRITISH failing not american so dont "blame" us for it as your title suggest. Pretty sure Obama isnt holding a gun to Browns head going "what's my name ".

[s.rwitt]

But Danz, it's just so much easier to blame the Americans. For everything.

[removeduser_487563287433]

The Foreign Secretary cannot really do much different than this.

[Poach]

Whatever happened to the justice system being independent from politics? Damn Labour and their sneaky ways.

[Simon Cashmere]

Whatever happened to the justice system being independent from politics? Damn Labour and their sneaky ways.

It never was. And most of the time, you don't know that it's not, because the hearings are closed in the interest of national security.

This seems like a beat up to me. They have closed hearings all the time. And talk of a great many things...which the public never knows about. If they wanted to use this information, then just close the hearing. Sometimes the information is so sensitive, they cannot risk even the lawyers on the other side seeing it, in which case, just the judge does even if the hearing is closed. The judge then rules, without revealing what it is, on whether it should be suppressed on public immunity grounds. It may be a red herring designed to just end the hearings.

In terror trials, some really sensitive operational stuff cannot be shown to the other side, who are representing terror suspects for obvious reasons.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Whatever happened to the justice system being independent from politics? Damn Labour and their sneaky ways.

Oh please it's got nothing to do with Labour, this has always been happening.

[Didz]

It never was. And most of the time, you don't know that it's not, because the hearings are closed in the interest of national security.

The problem as I understand it is the the information the Labour Party want suppressed has already been judged as not detrimental to national security. I assume if its in danger of being included in the Judges summing up then it would have already been included in the public disclosure of the trial, as a Judge would not insert information from a closed session in his briefing to the jury. The issue seems to be that the Labour Party do not want the details of the torture sufferred by these victims included in the judges summing up because it would be more likely that these words were then reported by the press, and of course form a significant record in the case file. I can't see why else they would be concerned.