While the Prime Minister’s Office apparently declines to say whether the opposition leaders were asked if they wished to proceed with the detainee document review, it is clear the panel of judges was not done reviewing some of the material—including documents identified by the government as being subject to cabinet confidence.
While the Prime Minister’s Office apparently declines to say whether the opposition leaders were asked if they wished to proceed with the detainee document review, it is clear the panel of judges was not done reviewing some of the material—including documents identified by the government as being subject to cabinet confidence.
Parliament’s dissolution meant that the judges no longer had any committee of MPs to turn to for input. Post-election, the judges were looking to discuss their findings with a renewed committee of MPs, but no such committee was formed. “We were advised by the government that it is unlikely that the [committee] will be renewed,” the judges wrote in their June 15 letter.
So they handed over what they had done and left some work dangling – including documents over which the government had claimed absolute secrecy. “We did not undertake a review of the government’s claims of cabinet confidence since we received confirmation of these claims only before Parliament was dissolved,” the judges wrote. “Nor did we complete our review of all of the government’s claims of solicitor-client privilege.”
Greg Weston reviews how we got here.