Smacking Bottomley
Sir: Peter Bottomley takes issue with Boris Johnson's understanding of the effect of a Public Interest Immunity Certificate (Let- ters, 17 June). Judges may indeed admit documents in respect of which Public Inter- est Immunity has been claimed, but that is hardly the point.
The House of Lords has made it quite clear (Regina v. Wylie) that it is open to a minister not to advance a Public Interest Immunity claim before a court if he consid- ers it in the overall public interest, and thus appropriate, not to do so. In other words, if documents are so manifestly relevant to a defendant's case that they may lead to his acquittal, then the minister ought not to claim Public Interest Immunity at all.
Boris Johnson's analysis is quite right and Peter Bottomley's quite wrong. If have no doubt that Sir Richard Scott knows more than Mr Bottomley.
James Symington
11 Sterndale Road, London W14
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