NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE constitutional complications arising out of the questions raised by Mr. Duncan Sandys on Monday have developed so rapidly that an article on a later page dealing with this aspect of the controversy already needs to be supple- mented. The announcement by Mr. Sandys on Wednesday that as a Territorial officer he had received orders to appear before the military court of inquiry into the " leakage " raised a totally new issue. Since the whole question will have been debated in the House of Commons by the time these words appear it is only necessary here to emphasise certain salient features of the case. It is intolerable that a Member of Parliament should be threatened (the Attorney-General denies that there was any question of threats) under the Official Secrets Act. But once a leakage of confidential in- formation had been revealed it was the business of the Army Council to take the matter up, and the Council acted normally —indeed automatically—in instructing the G.O.C. Eastern Command to hold an enquiry. The Court of Enquiry acted stupidly (probably automatically again) in summoning Mr. Sandys as a witness—the enquiry, it must be emphasised, was,not into his action but into the action of whoever supplied him with confidential information—but there is no need to read into the order he received a deliberate challenge to the authority of Parliament. But a situation has been created, whether through folly or intent, which makes it imperative for the authority of Parliament over the executive to be asserted beyond possibility of challenge.
* *
Previous page
