CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Tom Hickman
Blackstone Chambers
Secret Justice
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
12:30 - 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
84 Queen's Park
Since 1997 there has been an extraordinary proliferation in the use of secret hearings and secret evidence in UK courts and tribunals. In such cases, documentary evidence, allegations, witnesses and legal submissions remain not only private but closed to one of the parties to the case. In these cases the interests of the prejudiced party are represented—but not adequately protected—by “special advocates”, appointed at the request of the Court to make submissions and challenge evidence in closed session. The regime raises serious questions not only about natural justice but also more generally, the rule of law. It has led, for instance, to a body of closed judgments known only to the Courts and Government. Two important recent decisions of the House of Lords have considered the use of closed proceedings in the context of deportation and control orders: RB (Algeria) & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] UKHL 10 and AF & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] UKHL 28. The workshop will explain where the law stands after these judgments and will consider the extent to which justice can ever be achieved in secret.
Tom Hickman is a graduate of Uof T’s LLM programme and has undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge. He is a practising barrister in London at Blackstone Chambers. He was junior Counsel for AF in AF & Ors v SSHD and was junior Counsel for Human Rights Watch and Justice in RB (Algeria) v SSHD. His practice includes all areas of public law and human rights law.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Professor Lorraine Weinrib at l.weinrib@utoronto.ca or Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
