Salahuddin Amin v Director General of the Security Service and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Moore-Bick |
| Judgment Date | 26 June 2015 |
| Neutral Citation | [2015] EWCA Civ 654 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 26 June 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No: T3/2013/1797 |
[2015] EWCA Civ 654
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Mr. Justice Irwin
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Moore-Bick
Vice-President of the Court of Appeal, Civil Division
Lord Justice Tomlinson
and
Lord Justice Underhill
Case No: T3/2013/1797
Mr. Patrick O'Connor Q.C. and Mr. Danny Friedman Q.C. (instructed by Bhatt Murphy) for the appellant
Mr. Rory Phillips Q.C. and Mr. Jonathan Hall Q.C. (instructed by the Government Legal Department) for the respondents
Hearing date: 22 nd May 2015
This is the judgment of the court on the appellant's application for a review of the conditions restricting the publication and use of certain documents brought into being or disclosed in the course of, and for the purposes of, the proceedings relating to the appellant.
In order to explain the nature of the application and the reasons for our decision it is necessary to describe briefly the course of events by which those restrictions have been imposed.
In November 2005 the appellant and six others were due to stand trial at the Central Criminal Court on an indictment charging them with conspiracy to cause explosions. The trial judge was Sir Michael Astill. At a preliminary hearing on 28 th November 2005 he ordered that part of the trial be conducted in private. At the same time he gave various directions designed to enable those representing the appellant to have access on restricted terms to certain materials of a confidential nature in order to ensure that they had a full and fair opportunity to contest the allegations made against them. His orders were made in the light of a public interest immunity ("PII") certificate made by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs dated 20 th October 2005 confirming that it would be not be in the public interest for the relevant material to be disclosed. The handling restrictions for which the order provided had been carefully crafted in order to enable the appellant to have access to as much of the material as possible while preserving its confidentiality.
On 13 th January 2006 an appeal against Sir Michael's order was dismissed by the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division in a judgment reported at [2006] 1 W.L.R. 1361.
On 23 rd February the judge delivered a ruling on an application by the appellant under sections 76 and 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 that evidence of certain admissions he had made in the course of a series of interviews by the police be excluded from the trial. The judge dismissed the application. The transcript of his ruling remains confidential, as does the record of the proceedings relating to it.
In May 2006 the appellant made an application for the indictment to be stayed on the grounds of abuse of process. The judge also dismissed that application and the record of his ruling and of the relevant part of the proceedings remains confidential.
On 30 th April 2007 the appellant and others were convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions. In a written judgment delivered on 23 rd July 2008 the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division dismissed their applications for leave to appeal against conviction. A partially redacted version of the court's judgment was made public; the unredacted version remains confidential.
In November 2009 the appellant began the present proceedings seeking to recover damages for personal injuries on the grounds that the respondents were liable for ill-treatment he alleged he had suffered while under detention in Pakistan. For that purpose he wished to make use of documents that had been disclosed or brought into existence in connection with the criminal proceedings. Accordingly, on 3 rd July 2012 Lord Judge L.C.J. sitting both as a judge of the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division and as a judge of the Crown Court ordered that, notwithstanding the order made by Sir Michael Astill at the Central Criminal Court on 28 th November 2005, the appellant...
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