Guilt by Association: Contrasting views on the fairness of ‘secret trials’ of ‘terrorists’

This chapter examines key aspects of procedural justice which arise when individuals are detained under counter-terrorist legislation in the United Kingdom. The task requires a careful look at the legal proceedings which individuals who are detained under control orders/TPIMs are subject to, namely a ‘secret trial’ and their dependence on the work of Special Advocates to disclose/reveal the Home Office case against them and judges whose scope in deciding appeals is extremely limited. An examination of the procedural measures adopted in these cases reveals the very different way that secret trials operate to that of public criminal trials. At the same time, and by contrast with anthropology, I argue that the disciplinary training of lawyers predisposes them to accept a narrow approach to ‘facts’ and a tendency to assign liability for actions in ways which facilitate secret legal processes. In contrast anthropologists, in their attempt to see the work of law more holistically, seek to probe, unsettle and question the apparent certainties which underlay legal practice and to ask whether such procedures are fair and just