Ministers not judges will decide secret hearings, experts warn The lawyers pointed to a clause in the bill which reads: "The judge must grant the application if there is any material which would fall to be disclosed and disclosure of which would be damaging to the interests of national security." In a response to the Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is looking at the issues, the lawyers added: "We remain of the view we expressed in our response to the consultation that CMPs (closed material procedures) are inherently unfair and contrary to the common law tradition; that the Government would have to show the most compelling reasons to justify their introduction; that no such reasons have been advanced; and that, in our view, none exists." During the initial consultation on the proposals, a submission by 57 of the 69 current special advocates said closed procedures '"represent a departure from the foundational principle of natural justice that all parties are entitled to see and challenge all the evidence relied upon before the court and to combat that evidence by calling evidence of their own." Last month Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the former director of public prosecutions, warned ministers would use secret courts to try to cover up government "wrongdoing" despite concessions. He said ministers would seek to hide "awkward or embarrassing" material by persuading judges there was a national security reason for hearing it in private. The Liberal Democrat peer judges would be likely to agree because they tend to "pay a high degree of deference" to them in matters of national security.