Britain: Secret courts and democratic rights
The Justice and Security Bill, published for debate in May 2012, deals with matters relating to the secret services. Most controversially, it includes proposals to introduce ‘Closed Material Procedures’ (CMPs), also known as ‘secret trials’, to civil damages proceedings in the UK. Such procedures are already used in criminal trials, and some immigration and employment cases. This would prevent one party to proceedings from seeing or challenging evidence when it is deemed necessary to protect ‘national security’.