The applicants are no longer detained. According to the information received from the applicants’ lawyers, following the judgment of the European Court, Mr Lewis was granted leave to appeal his conviction. The appeal was dismissed on 6 April 2005 by the Court of Appeal ( [2005] EWCA Crim 859 ). A new application was made to the European Court in 2007 under Article 6 following the Court of Appeal’s judgment, but that application was rejected at an early stage (see application 6116/06).
Mr Edwards applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) who rejected his request to have his case referred to the Court of Appeal on 28 February 2007. His request for judicial review of that decision was dismissed on 14 August 2007 by a single judge of the High Court. The applicant then applied to the full court and judgment was given on 13 October 2008 refusing his application (case reference [2008] EWHC 2389 (Admin) Case No: CO/3764/2007). A new application was made to the European Court in 2009 but that application was rejected at an early stage (see application 21566/09). Consequently, no other measures are considered necessary by the Committee of Ministers.
II. General measures
On 5 February 2004 the House of Lords gave judgment in the case of R v H and others [2004] 2 AC 134 , in which it considered the question of whether the procedures for dealing with claims for public-interest immunity made on behalf of the prosecution in criminal proceedings complied with Article 6 of the Convention.
Disclosure of sensitive evidence : The House of Lord took into consideration the extensive jurisprudence of the European Court, including the present case a nd stated that derogation from full disclosure “may be justified but such derogation must always be the minimum derogation necessary to protect the public interest and must never imperil the overall fairness of the trial” ( see R v. H , at 148 ) . A number of general guiding principles on disclosure and the procedure which must be followed when a court is faced with an application to withhold sensitive material from the defence were set out in the decision.
The principles were summarised in the Guidance which was issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions on 13 February 2004 and circulated among lawyers, caseworkers and prosecutors. The principles were later included in Chapters 12 and 13 of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Disclosure Manual issued in April 2005. Moreover, Part 5 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 amended the disclosure regime in the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996. This latter Act gave statutory force to the prosecution’s duty of disclosure. The new text requires initial and continuing prosecution disclosure of any previously undisclosed material “which might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case for the prosecution against the accused or of assisting the case for the accused”. The edition of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Disclosure Manual issued in April 2005 supersedes all previous guidance. Along with other things it clearly sets out when the prosecutor’s statutory duty to disclose is triggered, the importance of scrupulously observing that duty, and sets out the consequences of failure to do so.
The judgment of the European Court was published in the European Human Rights Law Review at (2005) 40 EHRR 24 , and in The Times on 3 November 2004.
III. Conclusions of the respondent state
The government considers that no individual measure is required, apart from the payment of the just satisfaction, that the general measures adopted will prevent similar violations and that the United Kingdom has thus complied with its obligations under Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention.
Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 2 December 2011 at the 1128th Meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies