The Claim of Privilege for Police Records
| DOI | 10.1177/002201834801200208 |
| Date | 01 April 1948 |
| Published date | 01 April 1948 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Claim
ofPrivilege
for
Police
Records
THE
extent
to
which,
and
the
manner in which,
the
executive
may
claim to exclude from evidence docu-
ments otherwise relevant
and
liable to production was
recently declared
by
Viscount Simon, L.C., in Duncan v.
Cammell, Laird G
Co.
(1942, A.C. 624, 629),
to
be a
matter
of "high constitutional importance".
It
is likely
to
be a
matter
of increasingly recurrent importance, because of
the
growth of
State
activities in
what
has
hitherto
been
the
sphere of private enterprise,
and
it
is likely to arise
not
only
in civil,
but
in criminal proceedings also, since much
State
enterprise is supported
by
the
creation of criminal offences.
Such an instance was, indeed, reported on p. 121 of Volume
11 of this
JOURNAL!.
In
this connexion,
it
should be noted
at
the
outset
that,
in
the
decision of
the
House of Lords in
Duncan's case, which
may
be said
to
have settled certain
aspects of
the
question in civil proceedings,
it
is specifically
stated
(at p. 634)
that
"the
judgment of
the
House is
limited
to
civil actions,
and
the
practice, as applied in
criminal trials where
an
individual's life or liberty
may
be
at
stake, is
not
necessarily
the
same".
It
was in
the
course of such criminal proceedings
that
the
matter
was
raised once more, in The People (A.-G.) v. White (1947,
1.R. 247), where
the
question was posed, whether a Chief
Superintendent of Police could claim privilege from pro-
ducing certain police records.
One of
the
points of dispute in White's case was whether
the
prisoner, who was accused of
the
murder of a detective-
officer in a gun-battle,
had
in fact fired
the
fatal shot,
it
being alleged
by
the
defence
that
the
deceased
had
met
his
death
at
the
hands of one of his colleagues. As, eventually,
the
conflict of evidence reduced itself to
the
question of
the
calibre of
the
bullet which killed
the
deceased,
it
was
1.
It
is
not
proposed
to
deal here
with
instances of
statutory
protection given
to
documents, or, alternatively,
with
statutory
provisions requiring
the
discovery
of documents which would otherwise be protected by common law.
201
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