The High Court this morning announced its decisions on the matters ventilated at yesterday’s hearing.
The court accepted the prioritisation of grounds of appeal advanced by the appellant, and ordered a four-week hearing on grounds 1 and 2 (unreasonableness, on the evidence, of the verdict) to be held in the spring of 2009. Written notes of argument are to be lodged by the appellant six weeks before the date eventually fixed and by the Crown four weeks before. As suggested by Maggie Scott QC for the appellant, the next chapter to be argued will be those parts of ground of appeal 3 (fairness of the trial) that relate to Tony Gauci. The Crown was ordered to provide written answers to this ground of appeal (directed particularly to the appellant’s assertions of fact) within eight weeks from today. The court will then decide how long a hearing will need to be allocated and when that hearing should take place.
The court accepted undertakings from the Crown to hand over to the appellant’s legal team the bulk of the witness statements by 12 December. In respect of those few assessed by the Crown possibly to give rise to public interest immunity issues, the Crown would submit them as soon as possible to the Advocate General who would by 23 January 2009 determine which, if any, gave rise to national security or international relations concerns which the court would require to adjudicate upon. All the rest would be handed over to the appellant.
The Crown undertook to make available to the appellant within eight weeks the UK previous conviction information relating to witnesses. In respect of non-UK convictions, the Crown would use its best endeavours to secure the information from the relevant foreign countries.
The court invited the former legal representatives of the appellant to comment on the grounds of appeal relating to defective representation at the trial and requested them to supply any relevant documentation not already handed over to the appellant’s present legal team.
Argument is continuing on a protocol governing the role of the “special advocate” to be appointed in relation to the mystery document in respect of which the UK Foreign Secretary has asserted public interest immunity.
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