LONDON, May 15 (UPI) -- The British government has given up trying to obtain inquests without juries in national security cases, the justice minister said Friday.
Jack Straw announced in a statement to the House of Commons that the government has not been able to get the support it needed for a change in the law, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The government had also proposed barring family members and the news media from parts of some inquests, a plan that was abandoned last year.
Straw tried to make the non-jury inquests more palatable by agreeing the decision would be in the hands of a judge of the High Court, not the secretary of state.
"The government felt these changes struck a fair and proportionate balance between the interests of bereaved families, the need to protect sensitive material and judicial oversight of the whole process," he said Friday.
But he said that "cross-party support' was still lacking.
