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Third party disclosure: public interest immunity and closed material procedures
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Re C and the necessity for non-party disclosure
The case of
Re C (A Child) [2016] EWHC 3171 (Fam) (case heading:
London Borough of Tower Hamlets v M and F and Others) Pauffley J raises a number of issues over where the welfare of a child may be treated as in conflict with the needs of national security (as asserted by SO15: the Counter Terrorism Command a Special Operations branch within London’s Metropolitan Police); and the extent to which the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) should disclose information as a third party to the parties in care proceedings. It hints at a procedure for closed material procedure (CMP) and refers to possibilities of an application for public interest immunity (PII) for the material in question.
In
Re C care proceedings were started by the local authority as a result of information provided by SO15 including that on information from the passport office they believed the father of a child held ‘an Islamist extremist mind-set’. The local authority needed evidence to support their application: the onus of proving the care application was on them....
Read the full article here.
