Secret justice is no justice at all and closed court requests should be treated with concern

Closed courts 'against principle of justice' say Supreme Court president

Lord Neuberger said requests of such should be treated with 'distaste'

Concern: Lord Neuberger said judges should take care when presented with closed court requests

Britain's highest court has launched a stinging attack on secret justice, saying it is ‘not justice at all’.

The president of the Supreme Court said that other than in exceptional circumstances judges should treat requests to hear cases in closed courts with ‘distaste and concern’.

In a blow to ministers, Lord Neuberger said hearing evidence behind closed doors was ‘against the principle of justice’.

He added that cases where one party was excluded from knowing the evidence against them were particularly ‘offensive’ and should happen only when they were ‘convincingly demonstrated to be genuinely necessary’.

He spoke out during a case involving the Government and an Iranian bank accused of indirectly helping finance Teheran’s nuclear weapons programme.

After a four-year fight Bank Mellat has successfully overturn an order, made by the Treasury under counter-terrorism legislation, which barred it from operating in the UK.

The case represents a victory for the principle of open justice and the Mail’s campaigning against the introduction of courts that would hear some civil compensation cases in secret.

Bosses of the bank had argued the 2009 order was unlawful as they had not been given a chance to fight their case before it was imposed and were not party to the evidence heard in secret.

Their challenge led to the Supreme Court – for the first time – holding a closed hearing to consider a previous secret ruling made by High Court judges.

Lord Neuberger said that a closed hearing was ‘even more offensive to the fundamental principle [of justice] than a private hearing’, where both parties are represented.

‘At least a private hearing cannot be said, of itself, to give rise to inequality or even unfairness as between the parties,’ he said.

Fake justice: Lord Neuberger said secret justice cases heard behind closed doors at the Royal Courts of Justice were in fact 'not justice at all'

‘But that cannot be said of an arrangement where the court can look at evidence and hear arguments on behalf of one party without the other party knowing, or being able to test, the contents of that evidence and those arguments, or even being able to see all the reasons why the court has reached its conclusions.’

Lord Hope, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said secret justice ‘at this level’ was ‘really not justice at all’.



After judges heard evidence behind closed doors as part of Bank Mellat’s High Court challenge of the 2009 order, their secret judgment was then considered by the Court of Appeal. It dismissed the bank’s challenge in 2011.

But yesterday the order barring anyone in the UK financial sector working with Bank Mellat was overturned after the Supreme Court ruled that the Treasury order had been ‘demonstrably unfair’ in wrongly singling out Bank Mellat.

The civil rights group Liberty praised the verdict.

Corinna Ferguson, the group’s legal officer said: ‘Proud principles of open justice and the rule of law are the casualties as the secret justice disease infects the highest court in the land.

‘Today’s chilling judgment brutally exposes the Government’s claims and lays bare its willingness to overstate the importance of secrecy to serve its own ends.’

She added: ‘Given recent revelations of spying and snooping it really does seem that it’s one rule for the state, another for everyone else – no scrutiny for them, no privacy for us.’

When the bank’s case reached the Supreme Court two lawyers joined justices at the private hearing.

One was a barrister representing the Treasury. The other represented the interests of the bank but was not permitted to reveal what went on to the bank’s bosses or any of its staff.