"I am just wondering whether it is right for the noble and learned Lord to put these issues into such neat boxes. Let us take the case of Binyam Mohamed and assume that there was closed material procedure so that the Government would not have had to pay a lot …..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"I am talking about when he was seeking damages in the civil claim after he had been released and brought back to this country. That is the process to which this would be relevant...." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too sure that it is right, but I tried to indicate agnosticism about the precise way of approaching it. I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord, with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and with my noble …..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"I do not understand why it is sensible to do this by way of satellite litigation—judicial review of a Minister—rather than leaving the judge at the centre to make the judicial decision himself...." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"Just to clarify, I am not talking about which comes first. I do not understand why it is sensible to say that a Minister makes the decision, and then it can be judicially reviewed. Why is that a more practical and sensible approach than leaving the flexibility to the judge …..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"Just to be clear, is the Minister saying that he accepts that the judge at the first stage should have complete discretion in deciding on case management and whether it should be dealt with first by PII or not? If not, why is that such a bad idea?..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"My Lords, the reason why I am sympathetic to Amendment 36 has already been explained. My difficulty with the Bill as it stands is that its wording is very subjective with regard to the Prime Minister. I like the way in which Amendment 36 seeks to spell out some criteria …..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"My Lords, I support the amendment for the reason indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours; that is, it seems to be a very practical way of solving the problem that I raised when we last discussed the Bill. It treats the ISC quite properly as within the inner ring …..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"I quite understand the Minister not wishing this amendment to be in statutory form, but would it be beyond the wit of man or woman to embody the idea behind these amendments in a protocol, a memorandum of understanding or something of that kind? I have in mind just …..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech
"I am grateful to my noble friend for the way in which he introduced the amendments. It makes my task brief and rather less sophisticated. I will make a number of points. First, the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Green Paper summarised, in paragraph 97 …..." Lord Lester of Herne Hill - View Speech