Govt keeps legal advice re: ID cards secret

In line with its (lack of) commitment to freedom of information, the government has decided to keep the legal advice it received on whether the ID cards bill conforms to the European Convention on Human Rights secret. According to The Register:

This line, however, merely confirms the Government's shameless approach to human rights in its legislation. One of the early moves of the Blair Government was to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into UK legislation in the Human Rights Act. This one might suppose would mean that the UK Government would be far more careful about human rights in its legislation, but instead of this it tends to be used as a kind of cloaking device. Instead of being accompanied by detailed assessments of human rights impact, UK legislation now tends to have just a one liner saying 'the provisions of this legislation are compatible with the European convention of human rights.' So, as Browne put it today, the Cabinet has advice on the impact prepared for it, and nobody else needs to see the advice because the legislation has been deemed to be compatible by the Cabinet. Trust us.

Thus in one fell swoop this illustrates both the weaknesses of the human rights/freedom of information legislation and the attitudes of this government towards privacy, openness, freedom of information and human rights. I.e. they know best and are quite happy to keep secrets about the legislation that will open up our lives to their scrutiny at the expense of our privacy and freedom.