A claim for judicial review of a decision of the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute is not a “criminal cause or matter” within the meaning of section 6 of the Justice and Security Act 2013. Accordingly, in the course of such judicial review proceedings, the court has jurisdiction to determine an application for a declaration under section 6 of the Act permitting closed material proceedings in the course of the proceedings (paras 7, 83).
Where, therefore, in judicial proceedings brought by the claimants challenging decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute individuals in relation to allegations that the claimants had been unlawfully “rendered” from Thailand to Libya, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs applied for a declaration permitting close material proceedings under section 6 of the Act, and the claimants contended that the court had no jurisdiction to make such a declaration as the underlying proceedings were a “criminal cause or matter” within the meaning of section 6—
Held, that the phrase “criminal cause or matter” could have different meanings in different statutes addressing different contexts; that the 2013 Act represented Parliament’s solution to a wide range of proceedings with the common thread that the proceedings could not properly be tried, and the relevant evidence examined by the court, without closed material proceedings; that while the judgments under scrutiny concerned future criminal proceedings, even if the application were to succeed important further steps were required to be taken before any criminal proceedings might begin; and that, accordingly, in all those circumstances, the claimant’s challenge to the prosecutorial decision was not a “criminal cause or matter” within the meaning of section 6 of the 2013 Act so that the court had jurisdiction to determine the Secretary of State’s decision (paras 76–77, 78, 83, 84).
Clare Montgomery QC and Helen Law (instructed by Leigh Day) for the claimants.
John McGuinness QC and Tom Little (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Victoria Ailes (instructed by BCL Burton Copeland) for Sir Mark Allen, the first interested party.
James Eadie QC and Ben Watson (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the third interested party.
Jeremy Johnson QC and Zubair Ahmad (instructed by Special Advocates Support Office) as special advocates.