Supreme Court hands down judgment on admissibility of Wikileaks

News Nigel Pleming KC, Steven Kovats KC, Richard Wald KC 8th February 2018

The Supreme Court has handed down judgment in R (oao Bancoult No 3) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2018] UKSC 4, in which Nigel Pleming QC, Richard Wald and Stephen Kosmin appeared for the Appellant, and Steven Kovats QC appeared for the Respondent.  Most unusually, the Supreme Court had sat with seven justices.

The Supreme Court unanimously held that the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations did not prevent a Wikileak Cable being admitted as evidence of the truth of its contents and that the challenge would have succeeded if the admission of the Wikileak cable to be weighed against other evidence could have made a difference.  On the facts, that test was not satisfied and the appeal was dismissed.

The judgment can be accessed here.

Related Barristers

Nigel Pleming KC

Steven Kovats KC

Richard Wald KC