United Kingdom
The report was headed up by senior high court judge Sir Richard Scott, and was
commissioned after a trial against Matrix Churchill failed. The
court case against arms manufacturers Matrix Churchill centered around allegations
that they did not get the required permission from parliament to export certain
hardware items to Iraq. The
report outlined the various 'mistakes' made by ministers, but cleared them of
the damaging allegations that they sought to deprive Churchill's directors of
a fair trial.
The
report highlighted concerning lapses in how ministers reported to parliament,
a strategy carried out presumably for fears of a public outcry at the changes.
It transpired
that the government's policy towards the export of non-lethal military goods was
changed following the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, but this fact had not been reported
to parliament. That
this was not reported to parliament, led to the charges that brought Matrix Churchill
to court. Churchill
had obtained the required permission to export the 'weapons' under the
unpublicized, changed, rules. The
Tory Attorney General, the highest law officer in the land, tried to cover up
facts during the trial by attempting to obtain a Public Interest Immunity certificate.
This was to be used in an attempt to cover up the fact that Churchill had been
working for the British Secret Service. This
case, along with a number of others, was successfully used by the Labour Party,
under Tony Blair, to fight the general election in 1997 against allegations of
the Conservative government's sleaze and corruption. | 
