Maybe I'll quickly start.
Assuming you're sticking with the bill and you want to find ways to improve it, I have said that if you're going to use special advocates, you want to make it the best possible in the world.
You've picked up other points that certainly have been made about how to improve this bill.
I understand the bill, as it stands, makes it clear that there's no solicitor-client relationship between the special advocate and the named person. However, one of the improvements that's been suggested is to allow the special advocate to actually discuss the case after having access to secret information, and also that the special advocate, although it's not a typical solicitor-client relationship, still has a burden to maintain confidentiality as between the named individual and the special advocate, absolutely.
As far as choice of counsel goes, I think it's important. It's a fundamental principle of due process, certainly, that individuals do have choice of counsel. We'd like to see a scheme in which there would be greater choice.
It's not really clear how it's supposed to work, because I think a lot of it is left to the regulations. Independence is very important there as well, independence from government. I understand the judge is supposed to appoint, but the judge is obviously going to get a roster from government, so there's a real question mark about how to maintain independence there.
On resources to special advocates, these cases, of course, have volumes and volumes of material. If you're going to use a special advocate, you have to be able to make sure that person has adequate resources and assistance, really, to go through the volumes and volumes of evidence, because it will be a large burden.