According to the BBC report, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7467058.stm, Straw himself said "It is fundamental that defendants should be able literally to see and hear the evidence before them", but went on to say "But you have to balance that against what actually happens in real life these days where you've got very serious gun and drug crime and there is such a high level of fear."

Clearly there are cases in which witnesses are frightened of testifying - it is a very serious issue and a very difficult one to deal with. But this has always been true throughout our history. To overturn one of the fundamental features of the Common Law that guarentees a suspect a fair trial, the right to see and hear evidence, and for the defence to be able to effectively cross-examine witnesses, can not be the right solution to this problem. After all, people can and do make false accusations as well as mistakes. We must defend our basic principles of justice. The solution to a problem of this nature is not to create bad law.

Little by little, the notion has crept in that principles of justice are not absolute (or inalienable as the US constitution has it) but are tradeable against this, that or the other - i.e. they are only contingent or provisional. This is an insidious and dangerous notion.

And for a minister to say, the day after a verdict of the highest court in the land, that the executive will seek to overturn the result is a very worrying state of affairs indeed.