No Secret

I am of course delighted at the decision on control orders (which should be abolished outright), just as I was at the decision to drop the loathsome proposals for secret Coroner's Inquests.

We now need to rid ourselves of convictions on anonymous evidence alone, of both pre-trial convictions and pre-trial acquittals by the Crown Prosecution Service, of the secrecy of the family courts (although that is improving), and of the anonymity of adult accusers in rape cases. Just for a start.

But we also need to get over the Human Rights Act, an incorporation into our domestic law of a Convention which rules out both trial by jury and magistrates' courts. We don't need it. We have our own tradition of open justice. We should stick to it. And we should get back to it.