I haven't been able to find (after an albeit cursory search on Google) a complete transcript of the Judgement in the BAe/SFO case handed down yesterday. I have however, found a good summary here:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2187683.0.The_judgment_in_the_BAE_Syst em_case.php
"The court has a responsibility to secure the rule of law. The Director was required to satisfy the court that all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat. He has failed to do so. He submitted too readily because he, like the executive, concentrated on the effects which were feared should the threat be carried out and not on how the threat might be resisted. No-one, whether within this country or outside is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice. It is the failure of Government and the defendant to bear that essential principle in mind that justifies the intervention of this court. We shall hear further argument as to the nature of such intervention. But we intervene in fulfilment of our responsibility to protect the independence of the Director and of our criminal justice system from threat. On 11 December 2006, the Prime Minister said that this was the clearest case for intervention in the public interest he had seen. We agree."
The last paragraph alone makes it worth reading through. I reckon the actual Judgement is a marvellous piece of Judicial drafting and worth a read for all legal nerds and indeed anyone interested in the Rule of Law in this country and how it's been systematically eroded in this country - probably since Thatcher came to power and then continued apace by Blair and now Brown.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2187683.0.The_judgment_in_the_BAE_Syst em_case.php
"The court has a responsibility to secure the rule of law. The Director was required to satisfy the court that all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat. He has failed to do so. He submitted too readily because he, like the executive, concentrated on the effects which were feared should the threat be carried out and not on how the threat might be resisted. No-one, whether within this country or outside is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice. It is the failure of Government and the defendant to bear that essential principle in mind that justifies the intervention of this court. We shall hear further argument as to the nature of such intervention. But we intervene in fulfilment of our responsibility to protect the independence of the Director and of our criminal justice system from threat. On 11 December 2006, the Prime Minister said that this was the clearest case for intervention in the public interest he had seen. We agree."
The last paragraph alone makes it worth reading through. I reckon the actual Judgement is a marvellous piece of Judicial drafting and worth a read for all legal nerds and indeed anyone interested in the Rule of Law in this country and how it's been systematically eroded in this country - probably since Thatcher came to power and then continued apace by Blair and now Brown.
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