Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

The noble and learned Lord relied very heavily on the question of how you deal with cases where sensitive intelligence information is relevant to the determination of the issue of the certificate. I refer him to paragraph 1.34 of the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which specifically deals with this question in the context of Clause 7. Where the Attorney-General had explained to the committee that where, "““the decision-making process entailed the application of high policy and was frequently based on sensitive material that could not be disclosed without risk to certain vital public interests””," that particular question was addressed by the High Court, which held that, "““it was satisfied that the decision of Attorney-General on whether a case should be de-scheduled is not within the exceptional category that is exempt from judicial review, albeit that there are significant constraints on the extent of review that may be undertaken””." The JCHR was apprised of the argument that the noble and learned Lord is now advancing to the Grand Committee and dealt with it in that paragraph.