Discovery

(1) Subject to, and in accordance with, rules of court and district court rules– (a) in any civil proceedings in the Supreme Court or a district court to which the Crown is a party, the Crown may be required by the court to make discovery of documents and produce documents for inspection; and 28 Crown Proceedings Act (b) in any such proceedings as aforesaid, the Crown may be required by the court to answer interrogatories, provided that this section shall be without prejudice to any rule of law which authorises or requires the withholding of any document or the refusal to answer any question on the ground that the disclosure of the document or the answering of the question would be injurious to the public interest. (2) Any order of the court made under the powers conferred by paragraph (b) of sub-section (1), shall direct by what officer of the Crown the interrogatories are to be answered. (3) Without prejudice to the proviso to sub-section (1), any rules made for the purposes of this section shall be such as to secure that the existence of a document will not be disclosed if, in the opinion of the Prime Minister, it would be injurious to the public interest to disclose the existence thereof.