Court report: Day 1
The Attorney General has been forced to dispatch a barrister to Southampton Magistrates Court, where the 'Marchwood 14' case is being heard, following the Greenpeace legal team's application for the disclosure of his advice on the legality of the Iraq war. The Government has never released the advice, which it used to justify the 2003 invasion.
Judge Woollard told the court he didn't have the power to order disclosure under on a technicality, unless the advice was 'prosecution material'. Instead, the Judge will listen to an application for a witness summons for the Attorney General tomorrow.
The court was then adjourned for the afternoon to give the Attorney General time to organise representation in court tomorrow.
Outside the court, Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tindale said:
"The government is grasping desperately at technicalities to avoid disclosing the Attorney General's advice. Their unexpected argument today was that the Attorney General is not part of the prosecution, even though he is the ultimate head of the prosecution service."
"The judge has now agreed to consider a witness summons to require the attorney general to provide the advice directly. The Attorney General is sending a top barrister to resist this, even though he has promised in the past that he is willing to go to court to explain and defend the advice he gives."
"These 14 people deserve a fair trial. It is essential that the Attorney General either makes his advice available or comes to court to explain himself."
Last February, the 14 Greenpeace activists attempted to stop the UK going to war in Iraq. Some of the defendants chained themselves to the gates of the Marchwood military port. Others locked themselves inside tanks bound for the gulf, after using pink paint to write 'No War' on the side of the vehicles.
This morning, when applying for the disclosure of the Attorney General's advice, Greenpeace's legal team argued that the outcome of the recent Katherine Gun case has impacted on our case.
Gun's case was discontinued because the Crown was unable to disprove her defence of 'necessity'. If her case went ahead, Gun was preparing to argue that it was necessary to leak a controversial Government email to the media to prevent the deaths of thousands of innocent people in a war.
The email revealed that the US and UK Governments were planning to secretly record the conversations of members of the United Nations Security Council. In documents provided to Greenpeace, Gun said she firmly believed the UK Government would not send troops to Iraq without a second UN resolution.
During the week the Marchwood 14 defendants will argue that they believed the war on Iraq was immoral and illegal. The defence team has already argued that, if the Attorney General's initial advice did not assert that a war on Iraq, without the UN resolution, was legal then that advice is relevant to the case. The activists face charges of aggravated trespass and criminal damage. To be convicted of these charges, the prosecution has to prove the defendants disrupted a lawful activity.
The case will continue throughout the week.
