The case of Hale Byrne. v Secretary of State for Foreign. Commonwealth and Development (and Others) was heard in the High Court earlier this month.
The case started life as a simple claim of misfeasance of public office and abuse of power. Mr Hale Byrne was a respected Civil Servant who found himself subjected to a violent and brutal arrest. He was accused of leaking a Diplomatic Telegraph in which our former Ambassador to the United States, Lord Darroch, accused President Trump of being ‘insecure’ and ‘inept’ and was required to leave.
Mr Hale Byrne denied all knowledge of this event.
HMG invoked the draconian powers of the Justice and Security Act 2013, claiming that the national security of the United Kingdom was threatened. Consequently, a Closed Material Proceeding was required with the engagement of security clearance and Special Advocates.
As is normal, this attempt to obfuscate a case by HMG was subject to the law of unforeseen consequences.
First the attention of the press was engaged and there was more coverage to the case was greater than normal: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/26/lord-darroch-alleged-affair-and-secret-court-evidence/ and secondly, our allies in the United States became perturbed.
The case was a challenge. In this case, HMG invoked their powers to the full and would not give us any aside nor aide; nor any redacted documents, no gisting of the case, no confidentiality rings- in fact, we were met with a wall of silence.Close Material Proceedings are very controversial as it is impossible to take instructions from your client and know the case against you: it is process of probing very slowly with the evidence and breaking down unstated facts. It is a breach of Natural Justice.
Paul had never appeared in a case with a co-counsel who was a Washington DC based attorney. Political forces in the United States were very interested in this case and instructed US counsel with permission to appear in our Court
Of course an argument was that HMG were behaving unacceptably in this case by using national security powers to frustrate justice and engage in a cover up; that will slowly unravel as all cover ups do.
With Judges of the calibre of Mr Justice Chamberlain and Mr Justice Garnham we can sleep safely at night, but the law must be reformed to prevent what has happened to Mr Hale Byrne. Justice may be done, but it is not seen to be done.
Judgement is reserved.
