Abstract
Last year, in the much-publicised Matrix Churchill case, three executives of the company were charged with illegally supplying arms-making equipment to Iraq. The case went to trial but the prosecution collapsed after Mr Alan Clark, the former Minister of State for Defence Procurement, admitted in cross-examination that he supported the allegedly unlawful sale. The Matrix Churchill affair is already something of a cause celebre in legal circles. However, its notoriety does not lie so much in the Minister's surprising admissions under cross-examination, as in the Government's declared position on public interest immunity. Four Ministers' having signed public interest immunity certificates in relation to documents pertaining to the case, it was asserted by the AttorneyGeneral2 (and by other Ministers,3 including the Prime Minister4) that the Ministers had a duty to claim public interest immunity for such documents and that this duty cannot be waived. This assertion, which continues to be made, must be refuted. It is not based on authority (despite the views expressed by two of the defence counsel in a letter to The Times5) and it goes against the spirit as well as the letter of recent developments in the law of public interest immunity. In his statement to the House of Commons on 10 November 1992, the AttorneyGeneral said:
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