Paul,

Thanks for this reminder. We have to remember that the UK system is slightly different from other political systems because of the nature of the Crown. The Crown is distinct from the people. Unlike a republic, which is a government for and by the people, the people are the government; the Crown is the government not the people. The people may participate in it, such as through Parliament, so long as they demonstrate allegiance to the Crown which is the supreme authority not the people or a constitution.  As a result of this difference, along with others such as custom, culture, and tradition, there is a need to understand the role of arcana imperii. 

 

The secrets of the state are something different from the records of the people. In this light, the Official Secrets Act takes on a deeper, potentially more troubling, meaning. The OSA thus serve to protect the Crown and does not serve a public interest understood as the people’s interest. In this sense, it serves to protect the Crown from the public. Moreover, the arcana imperii can be used to further the Crown’s interest not the public interest. To the extent that the Crown’s interests coincide with the public’s interest, this is not an issue and we can see it in such events as defending the regime and country from foreign enemies. All would share in the fate of the regime should the country be attacked. 

 

Where this goes wrong, though, is when the arcana imperii are used in a way that serve’s the Crown’s interest and these do not coincide with the public’s interest. The most notable, at least today, is the concern over the way the OSA was used to silence police officers and journalists who allege they had information about child abuse. The argument is that the arcana imperii, knowing the secrets of powerful people and thus being in a position to exploit them, influence them, or negate them were used in ways that did not help the public and furthered the Crown’s interest however that was displayed or understood. We have to remember that the Crown may not have even understood how some arcana imperii were being used or abused.

 

Please note that the Crown is not simply the Monarchy, although they are the main and best expression of it, as it is the State in the fullest sense. Thus, this is not a challenge to the Queen, Parliament, or the Church. Instead, it is a challenge to all of them as a collective in expressing the Crown’s interests.

 

We can consider the way that arcana imperii influence the culture and custom in the country in the case of Camelford where the water was poisoned by Aluminium Sulphate. The water company, in the days before the FOIA and other access to information regimes, instructed its people not to tell anyone and they covered up the initial threat to the public from this tragic mistake. Although the staff were not sworn to secrecy on the basis of the OSA, they were placed in a situation where the organisation was instructing them to respect the company’s secret its “arcana imperii”. We can also see it in the way that Rotherham’s culture around information and records led to the alleged removal and destruction of records that challenged what the organisation understood to be its secrets or at least its understanding of a topic which it did not want to address openly and directly as an organisation.

 

As people who manage records and deal with the archives, we may wish to consider how we are involved in the “arcana imperii”.  We have to be careful to note that some secrets are kept from the public for good reasons or reasons that respect and support the public interest. Therein lies the deeper challenge, to understand the legitimacy of the decision, that we face as a society and as an individual. No society and no individual ever solves these questions permanently so we must be vigilant to how we answer them and how we will answer them. Issues such as these remind us that records tell more than one story.

 

Thanks for the reminder on the programme. I look forward to it.

 

Best,

 

Lawrence

 

 

 

 

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