Jack Straw blocks release of cabinet minutes on Iraq

Ann Talbot
WSWS.org
Feb 26, 2009

The UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw has vetoed a ruling made under the Freedom of Information Act instructing the government to release the minutes of two key cabinet meetings on March 13 and 17, 2003, when the decision to go to war against Iraq was discussed.

This is the first time that the government has used its veto to prevent the release of information under the Act, which came into force in 2005.

“It is a necessary decision to protect the public interest in effective cabinet government,” Straw told the House of Commons. He asserted that “to permit the commissioner’s and tribunal’s view of the public interest to prevail would in my judgement risk serious damage to cabinet government; an essential principle of British parliamentary democracy. That eventuality is not in the public interest.”

…….full article here