- 30 A B - constitutional and institutional reasons. For constitutional reasons, it is the executive (and not the court) which has the responsibility for assessing and addressing risks to national security. C D A B The court is tasked to uphold the rule of law, administer justice and adjudicate disputes independently. In exercising its judicial function, the court must recognize the C D constitutional boundaries between executive, legislative and judicial E F power. It reflects the allocation of different functions to the executive and the court under the constitutional design. For institutional reasons, the E F executive (and not the court) has the requisite experience, expertise, G H resources and access to information and intelligence which make it best suited to making evaluative judgments on those matters. The court’s G H expertise lies in the law, interpreting and applying the law, and resolving I J K L M N O constitutional and legal issues in accordance with the law. It is a recognition of the differences in institutional capacities and expertise possessed by the executive and the court. 53. When national security is at stake, the executive’s decision process to address the risks ordinarily takes two steps: (1) making an assessment based on the relevant national security considerations; and (2) devising measures in response. The counter-measures necessarily vary according to the needs and circumstances, including the nature, level and I J K L M N O extent of the risks involved, the effectiveness of the means available to P Q address them; and the acceptability or otherwise of the consequent danger. These are all evaluative judgment incapable of objectively verifiable assessment best left to the executive. R S P Q As Lord Parker of Waddington in The Zamora [1916] 2 AC 77, at p 107, quoted by Lord Scarman in CCSU at p 405E, famously observed: “Those who are responsible for the national R S security must be the sole judges of what the national security requires”. T T U U V V