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A secret trial is a trial
Trial (law)

In law, a trial is an event in which parties come together to a dispute present information in a formal setting, usually a court, before a judge, jury, or other designated finder of fact, in order to achieve a resolution to their dispute....
 that is not open to the public
Public trial

Public trial or open trial is a trial open to public, as opposed to the secret trial. The term should not be confused with show trial....
, nor reported in the news. Generally no official record of the case or the judge's verdict
Verdict

In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge....
 is made available. Often there is no indictment
Indictment

In the common law legal system, an indictment is a formal accusation that a person has committed a criminal offense. In those jurisdictions which retain the concept of a felony, the serious criminal offense would be a felony; those jurisdictions which have abolished the concept of a felony often substitute the concept of an indictable offenc...
, the accused is not able to obtain the counsel of an attorney
Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an Attorney at law, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice fraud." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver justice....
 or confront witnesses for the prosecution, and the proceedings are characterized by a perceived miscarriage of justice
Miscarriage of justice

A miscarriage of justice is primarily the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime that he or she did not commit. The term can also be applied to errors in the other direction "errors of impunity" and to civil cases, but those usages are rarer, though the occurrences appear to be much more common....
 to the benefit of the ruling powers of the society
Society

A society is a group of humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive culture and/or institutions....
.

In the English-speaking world, one of the most notorious secret courts was the Star Chamber
Star Chamber

The Star Chamber was an England court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges, and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters....
 as it was used under Charles I
Charles I of England

Charles I was List of English monarchs, List of monarchs of Scotland and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his capital punishment on 30 January 1649....
 in the early 17th century.






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A secret trial is a trial
Trial (law)

In law, a trial is an event in which parties come together to a dispute present information in a formal setting, usually a court, before a judge, jury, or other designated finder of fact, in order to achieve a resolution to their dispute....
 that is not open to the public
Public trial

Public trial or open trial is a trial open to public, as opposed to the secret trial. The term should not be confused with show trial....
, nor reported in the news. Generally no official record of the case or the judge's verdict
Verdict

In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge....
 is made available. Often there is no indictment
Indictment

In the common law legal system, an indictment is a formal accusation that a person has committed a criminal offense. In those jurisdictions which retain the concept of a felony, the serious criminal offense would be a felony; those jurisdictions which have abolished the concept of a felony often substitute the concept of an indictable offenc...
, the accused is not able to obtain the counsel of an attorney
Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an Attorney at law, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice fraud." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver justice....
 or confront witnesses for the prosecution, and the proceedings are characterized by a perceived miscarriage of justice
Miscarriage of justice

A miscarriage of justice is primarily the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime that he or she did not commit. The term can also be applied to errors in the other direction "errors of impunity" and to civil cases, but those usages are rarer, though the occurrences appear to be much more common....
 to the benefit of the ruling powers of the society
Society

A society is a group of humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive culture and/or institutions....
.

In the English-speaking world, one of the most notorious secret courts was the Star Chamber
Star Chamber

The Star Chamber was an England court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges, and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters....
 as it was used under Charles I
Charles I of England

Charles I was List of English monarchs, List of monarchs of Scotland and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his capital punishment on 30 January 1649....
 in the early 17th century. The abuses of the Star Chamber were one of the rallying points of the opposition that organized around Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English people Military history of the United Kingdom and Politics of England leader best known for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, and ultimately resulted in the execution of the deposed king. The term "star chamber" became a generalized term for a court that was accountable to no one (except the chief executive) and was used to suppress political dissent
Political dissent

Political dissent refers to any expression designed to convey dissatisfaction with or opposition to the policies of a governing body. Such expression may take forms from vocal disagreement to civil disobedience to the use of violence....
 or eliminate the enemies of the regime.

Secret trials have been a characteristic of almost every dictatorship
Dictatorship

A dictatorship is usually defined as an Autocracy form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension....
 of the modern era. Although the Great Purges in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 under Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953....
 are best remembered for the Moscow Trials
Moscow Trials

The Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. Many of the defendants were executed....
, show trial
Show trial

The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial. The term was first recorded in the 1930s. There is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant and that the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an...
s in which the court became a parody of justice, most of the victims of the Terror were tried in secret. Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Tukhachevsky

Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Soviet Union military commander, chief of the Red Army , and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin Great Purge of the late 1930s....
 and his fellow Red Army
Red Army

The Red Army was the armed force first organized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918 and, in 1922, became the army of the Soviet Union....
 officers were tried in secret by a military tribunal
Military tribunal

A military tribunal is a kind of military court designed to Trial members of enemy forces during wartime, operating outside the scope of conventional Criminal law and Private law proceedings....
, and their executions were announced only after the fact. The presiding judge of the Moscow Trials, Vasili Ulrikh
Vasili Ulrikh

Vasiliy Vasilievich Ulrikh was a senior judge of the Soviet Union during most of the regime of Joseph Stalin. In this capacity, Ulrikh served as the presiding judge at many of the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union....
, also presided over large numbers of secret trials lasting only a few minutes, in which he would quickly speak his way through a pre-formulated charge and verdict.