A full court day has been allocated on Wednesday, 20 February for the third procedural hearing in the appeal by Abdelbaset Megrahi. For an account of proceedings at the first two procedural hearings, see
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/10/procedural-hearing_11.html
and
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/12/second-procedural-hearing.html
The principal issue now to be discussed is the United Kingdom Government’s claim for public interest immunity (PII) in respect of disclosure of the document from a foreign country (not the United States of America) the failure to disclose which to the defence at the original trial was one of the reasons that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission gave for concluding that Mehrahi’s conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice.
PII is a doctrine that permits a party to legal proceedings or the Crown to claim that certain evidence, even though relevant to the issue that the court has to decide (eg the guilt or innocence of an accused person) should not be led in court because to do so would be detrimental to the public interest. There is, of course, a public interest in the fair administration of justice, and that usually means that any evidence which could help to demonstrate the accused’s innocence, should be made available to the court. But it is possible for the Government to argue that this aspect of the public interest is outweighed in a particular case by some competing aspect, such as the preservation of national security. What the court then has to do is to balance the competing public interests and decide which one prevails. In criminal cases, securing that the accused has a fair trial, which involves being able to lead all evidence that might assist in establishing his innocence, normally (but not always) is held to outweigh the Government’s claim for secrecy.
The aspect of public interest that the UK Government appears to be advancing in the present case in support of its claim for PII is the preservation of good relations with the foreign country from which the document in question emanates. The Crown says that it sought to obtain that country’s consent to its disclosure to Megrahi’s legal team for use in the appeal, but that permission was denied. What the Appeal Court has to decide on Wednesday is whether that is a good enough reason for continuing to deny Megrahi’s lawyers access to a document that the SCCRC thought of such importance that his failure to have access to it at the original trial meant that there might have been a miscarriage of justice.
[Because of a conference being held at Gannaga Lodge, I shall be unable to make further postings on this blog until at least Thursday 21 February.]
"...disclosure of the document from a foreign country (not the United States of America) the failure to disclose which to the defence at the original trial was one of the reasons that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission gave for concluding that Mehrahi’s conviction may have amounted to a miscarriage of justice."
ReplyDeleteDo you have a copy of the entire SCCRC document? If not, the above statement appears to be false. The SCCRC public release in regards to "evidence not made available at trial" references ONLY that which pertains to Gauci and Malta. It says nothing more about other evidence not made available at trial. It also states that Malta ultimately cooperated in handing over information. Do you have additional information ? If so, please share.
Only four of the SCCRC's six grounds for holding that there might have been a miscarriage of justice were disclosed in its press release. That the failure to disclose to the defence the mysterious foreign document constituted one of the two remaining grounds was made clear at the first two procedural hearings.
ReplyDeleteGrounds made clear by whom? The SCCRC? or the defence in their appeal?
ReplyDeleteBy both the defence and the Crown.
ReplyDeleteI have a gut feeling that a dilligent investigator may find a huge recent deposit into each of the Scottish officials' involved in this decision, offshore accounts. I'd also check how much the doctors who testified about the terrorist's "terminal" illness received. Oh yes, al-Mehrahi officially will "die" in a few months, but then probably will be "resurected" under a different name and disguise and live happily ever after....
ReplyDelete