A New Chapter in the Normalisation of Closed Material Procedures

This note provides an analysis of the Supreme Court decision in Haralambous, which authorised the use of closed material procedures (CMPs) in proceedings surrounding search and seizure warrants issued under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). After presenting the facts of the case and the reasoning of the Court, the note examines the decision as an instance of CMP normalisation consistent with the model of normalisation argued for by Eva Nanopoulos in a previous MLR article. The notes goes on to make the case that Haralambous may be distinguished from previous instances of CMP normalisation on account of the Supreme Court's more open acceptance of CMPs in the decision, which signals a new chapter in CMP normalisation in the UK.