New Statesman demands inquiry into dropped case against guy who leaked...to them

In a fine display of chutzpah, The New Statesman, the British current affairs weekly is demanding a government inquiry into the dropping of charges against a foreign office civil servant accused of leaking documents to the magazine.

According to a story in the U.K. Press Gazette, the case against Derek Pasquill collapsed after the Foreign Office accepted that his leak had not caused damage.

The New Stateman argues in an editorial that the failure of the case calls into question the future of the Official Secrets Act on the basis that somebody in government “played a role in perverting the course of justice”.

“It was apparent to us from the outset that charging Mr Pasquill under the Official Secrets Act was nothing less than an abuse of state power, designed merely to spare the embarrassment of some ministers.

The New Statesman said that the tactics “appear designed to intimidate anyone in the civil service who has reservations about dangerous policy, and who might be minded to expose it in the public interest”.

Calling on prime minister Gordon Brown or foreign secretary David Milliband to launch an inquiry into the case, the leader adds: “This case has exposed the malice and hypocrisy at the heart of Whitehall's approach to whistleblowers.

The public interest is best served by promoting this kind of debate, rather than by seeking to criminalise individuals who have acted to expose dangerous policy.”

Pasquill was first arrested in January 2006 after The Observer and The New Statesman published a series of articles about the secret and illegal "rendition" of terrorist suspects by the US, and a number of disclosures about Government policy towards radical Islam. The pieces led to a number of questions in parliament, leading to cross-party support and shifts in government policy.