Time for an inquest into inquests

A rather worrying feature of the Government's anti-terror proposals, the six weeks in prison without being charged or even accused of anything, is the bit about secret inquests under the catch-all national security banner. And who is it that would decide whether it was in the national interest to have an inquest without jury, family, Press, observers or even a coroner? Why that most honest and trustworthy of creatures - a Government minister.

We have already seen what can happen when the Government thinks it can get away without an accountable inquiry into a suspicious death. In the Dr David Kelly affair the Government decided that an exercise in spin and whitewash was sufficient and no real examination of the death. an inquest by a coroner, a title dating back to before the Magna Carta, was undertaken, to the everlasting shame of the Fourth Estate who allowed the state to get away with it.

The proposal on secret inquests has been shelved for the time being but like 42 days detention, or the European Constitution, it will come back essentially the same but under another guise tacked on to another bill for another compelling reason.

Give the state the chance to hold secret investigations into deaths in custody, the shooting dead of Brazilian visitors or innocent bystanders or a senior scientist found dead in the woods and, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, the state will grab it with both handsl - all in the national interest of course.

We are losing freedoms every day and if we don't stand up and fight then before long we will find even that right denied to us.