Robin Wilton's esoterica

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12 Mar · Sat 2005

UK Control Orders

So this is what has now been passed into UK law, but with a built-in review after one year. That review will be by MPs, not - as appeared to be the Government's original plan, by a single QC (Queen's Counsel). At this point, it's worth taking a step back from the record-length dispute between the upper and lower houses over this bill, and looking at the measures provided by this legislation and the laws which expire on March 14th. It was their expiry which imposed a de facto deadline for the new law to be put in place. The fact that the Prime Minister is now claiming that persistent opposition objections to the bill "put the security of the country at risk" prompts me to wonder whether the whole process was set up for a bit of brinkmanship by the government. "Previous anti-terror laws, introduced in the wake of the 11 September attacks, that allowed foreign terror suspects to be imprisoned without trial had been ruled unlawful by Law Lords. These laws expire at midnight on Sunday." (BBC News) Two questions remains unanswered: First, how acceptable is it for people to be detained 'on suspicion', indefinitely, and possibly without knowledge of the charges brought against them? 1 - Detention on suspicion means that the person need not have committed an offence in order to be penalised. 2 - There seems no mechanism for judging when such a person ceases to be 'under suspicion'... so how are they to be released? 3 - Someone who is not informed of the charges against them cannot mount a defence. Second, this bill has consistently been characterised as 'preventive'. However, there's no getting away from the fact that the control orders allow for measures which punish the suspect. Again, how justare those punishments in cases where there is only suspicion that an offence might be committed? And what is the mechanism for deciding when the punishment measures should be lifted? Both these questions raise issues which seem hard to justify by any notion of justice. They also seem a poor way of mitigating the long-term risk presented by a terrorist threat.

Posted by racingsnake @ 02:35 PM GMT+00:00 [ Comments [1] ]

Comments:

We basically have the same rules already in the US, prisoners are just shipped off to Cuba where as they are outside the US and they have no rights. When you have a war, even liberal western goverments resort to desperate means.

Posted by harry on March 12, 2005 at 05:17 PM GMT+00:00 #

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