By Evarist Baimu Nyaga Mawalla - Home

een represented the reason for such withdrawal and for such unions to be givenan opportunity to comment on itThe reason why the minister for the Civil Service decided on 22 December 1983to withdraw this benefit was in the interests of national security. National securityis the responsibility of the executive government: what action is needed toprotect its interests is as the cases cited by my learned friend Lord Roskillestablish and common sense itself dictates a matter upon which those uponwhom the responsibility rest and not the courts of justice must have the last word.It is par excellence a non-justifiable question. The judicial process is totally ineptto deal with the sort of problems which it involves .The executive government likewise decided and this would appear to be acollective decision of cabinet ministers involved that the interests of nationalsecurity required that no notice should be given of the decision beforeadministrative action had been taken to give effect to it The reason for this wasthe risk that advance notice to the national unions of the executive government’sintention would attract the very disruptive action prejudicial to the nationalsecurity the recurrence of which the decision barring membership of nationaltrade unions to civil servants employed at GCHQ was designed to prevent.There was ample evidence to which reference is made by others of yourLordships that this was indeed a real risk; so the crucial point of law in this caseis whether procedural propriety must give way to national security when there isconflict between (1) on the one hand the prima facie rule of procedural proprietyin public law applicable to a case of legitimate expectations that a benefit oughtnot to the withdrawn until the reason for its proposed withdrawal has beencommunicated to the person who had theretofore enjoyed that benefit and thatperson had been given an opportunity to comment on the reason and (2) on theother hand action that is needed to be taken in the interests of national securityfor which the executive government bears the responsibility and alone hasaccess to sources of information that qualify it to judge what the necessary actionis. To that there can in my opinion be only one sensible answer. That answer isYes348