The green paper proposed that, even when the Government is itself involved in proceedings, it should have the power to decide for itself whether to invoke the secret procedure, with only a very limited review by the court.

For example, MI6 have not succeeded in obtaining a PII certificate since the 1995 Tomlinson case, and have thus been subject to court scrutiny for investigations such as the inquest into the death of the Princess of Wales.

The submission stated that "Government ministers should not be endowed with discretionary powers to extend unfairness and lack of transparency to any proceedings to which they are themselves party".

Further warning, "it would leave Britain with more draconian rules than any other country in the world, more suited to despotic regimes such as Iran and North Korea".

But often, the Government witness will refuse to answer particular questions in open court, and the issue will have to be pursued by the special advocate in a closed hearing.

As a minimum the right to fair trial includes the following fair trial rights in civil and criminal proceedings:[9] There are several concerns that the Bill makes no provision whatsoever for recording and reporting on the use of CMPs, nor for any notice to be provided for CMPs, nor is there any provision for closed judgments or materials to be reviewed, or opened when secrecy is no longer required.

The government's commitment to open justice and transparency has not been addressed, in spite of the Joint Committee on Human Rights 24th Report (Ch 6) that identified democratic accountability and media freedom as "the missing issue in the Green Paper".

The committee criticised Home Secretary Theresa May for refusing to allow even special advocates to have access to information so they could assess whether secret trials were necessary.

A motion put forward by Jo Shaw, former parliamentary candidate for Holborn and St Pancras, to the party's 2012 autumn conference and passed "overwhelmingly" called upon its MPs to vote against Part 2 of the bill relating to CMPs.

[14] Along with Shaw, human rights lawyers Dinah Rose and Philippe Sands, and copyright reform activist Cory Doctorow publicly announced their resignations of their party memberships following the bill's vote.

[19] On 28 February 2013, a group of international organisations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and similar bodies from Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, Egypt and Hungary, also expressed similar concerns about the controversial British 'Justice and Security legislation', warning in a joint statement: "If the UK Parliament passes this proposal into law it will be a huge setback for those of us fighting to secure truth and fairness from our own governments and within our own justice systems across the world."