BS: UK Gov lies in court? Twice?

Subject: BS: UK Gov lies in court? Twice?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 09:10 PM

"The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) is one of the most controversial - and certainly the most secret court within English law.

It is the venue of appeal for foreign nationals facing detention, deportation or exclusion from the UK on grounds of national security. It has the same powers as the High Court and is presided over by senior judges.

Siac's hearings and rulings are never fully revealed to the public - or to the appellant themselves - because they include testimony from members of the secret security services which the government says it cannot divulge. "

The above is a short quote from the BBC here

Here is a link to another story lie in court scandal

It is a bit hard to grasp - but the point is that the GOVERNMENT appoints barristers to represent the accused. Those lawyers are allowed to see secret government evidence, but not to talk to the accused or their lawyers after they have seen such evidence. So no-one except those barristers - who are usually different on each case - get to know what the government says to the court, which may decide to deport the accused, perhaps to a place where the accused might be tortured.

But in this case it just happened that one barrister was in two cases where there was a potential link between the facts.

In case 1 the government alleged that a particular terrorist group had used the passport of someone only called "MK". MK was not on trail in that case. That allegation was challenged, and shown to be incorrect and was withdrawn.

In case 2, they later said the same thing again. Becuse the same barrister was by chance there, he was able to tell the court (not the accused) of the use of evidence withdrawn in the original case. THe court asked the government to check. Te government said it had checked and its barrister (not the same barrister as the one there to represent the accused) told the court it had withdrawn in this, the second case, all the material that was withdrawn in the first case.

That was not true. It is not clear that it was a deliberate lie to the court, but the suspicion must be there.

For a government to set up its own kangaroo court is bad enough. To mislead even that kangaroo court is surely a sign of a deep moral malaise - deep even by the standards of the present venal bunch.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Gov lies in court? Twice?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 03:36 AM

you thought you had human rights but you only have what the govermnent can't take away yet.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Gov lies in court? Twice?
From: Grab
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 07:43 AM

IIRC, the quote goes "Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by incompetence".

Having said that, this whole situation is pretty scary.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Gov lies in court? Twice?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:41 PM

On the other hand when people accused of conspiracy claim it was merely incompetance, this claim should be regarded with suspicion.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Gov lies in court? Twice?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 10:53 AM

I don't know which to be more scared of; our goverment actually being as incompetent as they seem, or them actually doing half of what the threaten/promise....

BTW, I disagree with the premise of this thread. They will have lied in court on this kind of thing far more than twice recently.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Gov lies in court? Twice?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 01:47 PM

If they can lie to parliament (which they DO) in the full glare of televised publicity, it should come as no surprise that they do so in a semi secret court.

One can only hope that the evil bastards will be clobbered at the next election.

We MIGHT even get a government that runs the UK, instead of helping Geedub run the world his way.

Don T.