Secret evidence means denial of fair trial

On first blush, this appears to be a setback to the kind of devious and wide-open-to-abuse way that many western governments have been treating terror suspects:

The law lords have dealt a major blow to the government's controversial use of control orders on terror suspects, saying that reliance on secret evidence denies them a fair trial.

The nine-judge panel led by Lord Philips of Worth Matravers, the senior law lord, upheld a challenge on behalf of three men on control orders who cannot be named.

The orders have not been quashed but the law lords have ordered that the cases be heard again.

The three had argued that the refusal to disclose even the "gist" of the evidence against them denied them a fair trial under the Human Rights Act.

Given the presumption of innocence (and if we lose that, we've pretty much given up on two thousand years of jurisprudence), it's incredibly difficult to present a defence when you are not allowed to know what evidence is being used against you. It makes a mockery of the very notion of a fair trial, and it is especially important in cases like these, where governments have been pantingly eager to avoid treating the suspects normally.