In his Hugo Young lecture last week Nick Clegg clearly signalled the imminent end to control orders. Now over the last couple of days the shape of the likely conclusions from the anti-terrorism review are starting to emerge, with the current 28-day limit on detention without charge coming back down to 14 days. A new set of tighter than usual bail conditions could then be imposed for a further 14 days.
The police’s stop and search powers are also likely to be curtailed, particularly following the news that in the last year over 100,000 stop and searches were conducted under the controversial section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, but not even one arrest for terrorism followed as a result.
On control orders themselves, Lib Dem peer (and advisor on anti-terrorist legislation to the government until 31st December) Lord Carlile is suggesting a three-tier replacement system, ranging from foreign travel restrictions (only) through to more general travel restrictions and up to specific activity restrictions in some cases. However, not only are other Liberal Democrat Parliamentarians continuing to argue vigorously against control orders full stop, so too are Conservative MPs led by David Davis.
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2 Comments
Good riddance. We never needed these laws, and they have quite obviously done no good whatsoever.
I’m disappointed that Lord Carlile’s article makes no mention of the possibility of using the intercept evidence that the security services have on these people in court. Virtually no other countries hobble themselves by refusing to admit intercept evidence in court – why should we?
And this bit is misleading: “Each of those dangerous individuals has been found by a senior judge, after exhaustive examination, to be rightly suspected of being a terrorist.”
If that’s so, how can Lord Carlile explain that Cerie Bullivant’s control order was quashed by a High Court judge who said that there were no reasonable grounds to suspect Mr Bullivant was involved in terrorism? The reason why we have courts, a jury system and give the defendant the right to see the evidence against him or her is that an individual judge acting in secret is not infallible.
Basically Lord Carlile is suggesting a more flexible system where fewer people would be subject to the restrictions we currently associate with control orders. That’s a move in the right direction but it still retains control orders in all but name (except that controlees could no longer be forced to relocate).
How is it that we have to abandon the right to a fair trial when we didn’t do so when faced with IRA terrorism and loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland?* For heaven’s sake, we didn’t even prevent suspected IRA terrorists from travelling to mainland Britain! How is it that no other European country has introduced anything similar, despite facing both Islamist and non-Islamist terrorism? Lord Carlile and Teresa May do not seem to be able to answer these questions convincingly. Until they can no one should accept the breach of such a fundamental right as the right to a fair trial.
*The Government of Northern Ireland did however create “Diplock courts” where there was no jury (to avoid jury intimidation, although even government reviewers admitted they could not find evidence of intimidation), but even in these courts the defendant could at least see the evidence.