An interesting take on the Corner House judgment from Joshua Rozenberg in the Telegraph: he thinks the government got into difficulties because the case happened to be dealt with by the SFO, when it might well have been investigated, instead, by the police, in which case the CPS would have taken Lord Goldsmith’s advice and concluded there was insufficient evidence to proceed in any event. A much less controversial approach. Rozenberg, like me, has mixed feelings about the judgment, with head worrying at qualms that heart initially ignored.
I don’t agree with him, though, that the draft Constitutional Reform Bill would solve the government’s problem. I think a decision by the Attorney to halt a prosecution on national security grounds would still be judicially reviewable on the basis of unreasonableness or that national security was being abused to cover up commercial motivations – it seems to me Corner House could still have won a challenge even if the new provisions had applied in this case.
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