James Eadie QC, for the Foreign Office, told the high court in London on Thursday that the phrase “criminal cause or matter” could mean different things, depending on the legislative context in which it appeared. In this case, it would allow the dispute to be heard in secret under a closed material procedure. Montgomery told the high court: “The DPP [Alison Saunders] has given no intelligible reasons for the decision not to prosecute him. The issue in dispute, he added, is about the “commencement of the criminal matter”. Therefore “where criminal proceedings are not commenced that there is no criminal cause or matter”.

Source: The Guardian November 02, 2017 17:05 UTC