The Contradiction Engine · For lawyers · Free

Disclosure or protection?

The situation

You are prosecuting counsel. Dalton is charged with supplying drugs from a flat. In the police file you find a note recording that an informant told an officer that a different man, not Dalton, controlled the flat.

The officer says the informant will face serious violence if identified. The defence has asked for ‘everything in the file’.

The rules

Rule A (Criminal Procedure Act 2008, s.20). The prosecution must disclose to the defence any material that might undermine the prosecution case or assist the defence.
Rule B (s.21). Material may be withheld only if a court, after hearing the prosecution in private where necessary, decides that disclosure would risk serious harm to a person and that the public interest in withholding outweighs the interest of the defence in disclosure. The court may order disclosure in summarised form instead.
Rule C (s.22). Where disclosure that is necessary for a fair trial cannot safely be made, the prosecution must discontinue the case.

Your task

Decide what you, as prosecutor, should do about the note.

Everything you need is on this page: no outside law and no tools. All places, statutes and people are fictional (the Republic of Eastmark). More than one answer may be defensible: what matters is that your reasoning follows the rules shown.

Step 1 · What kind of conflict is this?

A real conflict that the law does not resolve: reasonable lawyers could differ.No real conflict: the two rules govern different things.The conflict disappears once the rules are read together properly.A real conflict that the law tells the decision-maker to resolve by weighing.

Professional skills training with fictional material. It is not legal advice and is not accredited by any court, regulator or professional body.