A small group of accredited journalists will be allowed to attend the “secret” trial of two terrorist suspects as long as they hand in their notes at the end of the session, the Court of Appeal has held.
Certain parts of the trial will be held in public, including the swearing in of the jury, opening remarks of the prosecution and the verdict, the court ruled, in Guardian News v AB CD. However, the bulk of the trial will be held in camera.
Lord Justice Gross said: “Open justice must…give way to the yet more fundamental principle that the paramount object of the court is to do justice; accordingly, where there is a serious possibility that an insistence on open justice in the national security context would frustrate the administration of justice, for example, by deterring the Crown from prosecuting a case where it otherwise should do so, a departure from open justice may be justified.”
The trial is due to begin next week.
