Setty, Sudha --- "Formalism and state secrets" [2013] ELECD 674; in Cole, David; Fabbrini, Federico; Vedaschi, Arianna (eds), "Secrecy, National Security and the Vindication of Constitutional Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 57

Book Title: Secrecy, National Security and the Vindication of Constitutional Law

Editor(s): Cole, David; Fabbrini, Federico; Vedaschi, Arianna

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781953853

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Formalism and state secrets

Author(s): Setty, Sudha

Number of pages: 16

Abstract/Description:

The state secrets privilege has received a tremendous amount of scholarly attention in the US in the last decade, initially prompted by the administration of President George W. Bush seeking early dismissals of lawsuits that dealt with allegations of serious constitutional and human rights violations. The administration’s litigation posture was troubling – but the judicial acceptance of these claims, largely based on the judiciary’s own formalistic view of its own role in engaging the executive branch on national security secrecy – allowed the executive branch to make virtually unilateral secrecy determinations that shielded it from civil suits. In September 2009 the Obama administration created a new policy that mandated a more rigorous internal administrative review prior to invoking the state secrets privilege. In the years since the new policy took effect, it appears as though this internal review process has resulted in little difference with regard to the invocation of the privilege at the pleadings stage in cases that allege torture and other human rights abuses. One high-profile case, that of Binyam Mohamed and other plaintiffs claiming that they had been subject to extraordinary rendition, torture, and prolonged detention, offers evidence of a disturbing trend of US courts retreating to formalistic reasoning to extend unwarranted deference to the executive branch in security-related contexts. In this chapter, I consider the state secrets privilege and place the formalist decision- making of the Mohamed court in juxtaposition with other nations’ jurisprudence – including the English courts that dealt with a separate lawsuit brought by Mohamed there.