Government and Judiciary relations at breaking point over torture ruling

The Times reports that relations between the government and the judiciary are at breaking point following the decision of the Court of Appeal to reinstate a judge's criticism of MI5 in a landmark torture ruling.

The judgment concerns the mistreatment in CIA custody of ex Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, and what MI5 knew about it.

The original ruling caused outrage when it emerged that the part in which Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, questioned the honesty of secret service officers, had been removed following Foreign Office interference.

Now Judge Neuberger and two colleagues have reinstated the paragraph, rewritten to focus the criticism on the individual case. They have also published the original draft text.

Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, said he was deeply disappointed by the court's decision to criticize the Security Service in that manner.

He said: "The Government respects the right of the judges to reach their own judgment. But it is also right that, where we disagree with their conclusions, we say so. The UK’s security and intelligence services do outstanding work to keep us safe against a real and continuing terrorist threat, and they do so under proper control and oversight - by ministers, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the commissioners and, where necessary, the courts."

Without going into the rights and wrongs of torture, or Guantanamo, or indeed the whole war against terror, all of which may be good material for further posts by me or other contributors, we really do need to establish something.

The government depends upon the courts and the judges to uphold the law. Many people criticize them for being out of touch, elitist, superior, wrong minded... and so on, but they are the foundation of our justice system. Therefore, when they rule against the government, based in their learned way upon the laws that the government has made, it is a bit rich for ministers to get their drawers in a twist about it.

Lawyers from the foreign office should have no part in changing rulings of the courts and when they do, they should not be overly surprised that the courts eventually get their own way.

It seems to me that the Blair-Brown government was so desperate to co-operate with the Bush-Cheney administration that they were happy to overlook the fact that prisoners were being tortured. Brits, for all their faults (including island mentality xenophobia and a general dislike of anything that isn’t Anglo-Saxon, except curries and Spanish beaches), are essentially decent people. They don’t like their governments colluding in torture and this government was at least smart enough to recognize that and lie about rendition flights and actual knowledge of torture.

They were forced to admit that they had, erm, got it wrong about the extraordinary rendition flights and to apologize. Now they would do well to do the same thing here.

They have the power to change the law if they wish. Until they do they would do well to obey what stands like most of the rest of us do.

Photos show Mr Neuberger and Guantanamo Bay in the south of Cuba.

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