Coroners and Justice Bill

Public interest immunity certificates are used to withhold from a jury information that would otherwise be disclosable, but not in a case in which it could lead to an injustice. The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe signed plenty of PIIs, and I signed plenty of them both as Home Secretary and as Foreign Secretary. The difficulty in this instance is that if we leave it to a jury to consider the matter—as even those who support the idea, such as Lady Miller and certain interest groups outside, will accept—the finder of fact, the jury in this case, will be expected to find the facts when some of the key facts are being withheld. Surely that is far less just than allowing a senior judge of High Court status or above to examine the issue.