'Historic' win for terror suspects

Dec 1 2009

Two men suspected of terrorist-related activities have won a landmark High Court battle against the use of secret evidence by the Government to deny them bail.

In what human rights lawyers are describing as a "historic" victory, two judges ruled that a person cannot be denied bail solely on the basis of secret evidence.

They ruled that bail applications should be treated the same as control order cases, where terror suspects must be given an "irreducible minimum" of information about the case against them.

Lord Justice Laws, sitting with Mr Justice Owen, said it was "impossible" to conclude "that in bail cases a less stringent procedural standard is required".

The judges also rejected Government claims that decisions by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), which deals with terror suspect cases, are immune from judicial review.

Lord Justice Laws said: "The court's ingrained reluctance to countenance the statutory exclusion of judicial review has its genesis in the fact that judicial review is a principal engine of the rule of law".