We have produced a guide to the submission by non-police non-state Core Participants to the Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing, in response to police and state requests for secrecy. Consisting of quotes from the submission itself, it can be found here: Open Inquiry Open Justice guide to NPSCP submission.
On 22-23 March 2016 a crucial hearing will take place in London, as part of the Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing. The two-day preliminary hearing is set to determine if the inquiry will be open and transparent or whether it will be a secret process, which would largely exclude both the public and non-state Core Participants.
In advance of the hearing, different sets of Core Participants to the Inquiry have made submissions, setting out their legal arguments for the Chair’s consideration.
In their submissions, several police bodies and the Home Office argued that the Inquiry should largely be held in secret and that the policy of Neither Confirm Nor Deny should be upheld throughout. In a previous briefing, we provided an overview of these secrecy submissions.
Now the non-police non-state Core Participants (NSPCP) – that is, people who are part of the inquiry because they were affected by the police infiltrations – have had their submission published on the Inquiry website. They support the principle of open justice, and argue that it is essential that the public inquiry is just that: public.
For this crucial hearing, we believe strongly that every member of the public should have a chance to understand what is at stake. To aid this understanding, we have a produced a guide to the ‘open justice’ submission, which consists almost wholly of extracts from the submission itself. The guide can be found HERE.
This summary is an essential companion to our earlier briefing on the police and state requests for secrecy. That earlier briefing can be found here.
All of the above submissions, and others, can be found at the Inquiry website.
Further action: Demo Tues 22 March / Share a solidarity photo
