The New Terrorism Bill
The Home Office has recently suggested that prisoners be released early in order to alleviate record prison overcrowding. What this means is that many prisoners could be released under curfew and with an electronic tag, as well as the release which happens automatically half way through all sentences of four years or less.
Is it not ironic then that while the Home Office are taking such drastic measures to combat prison overcrowding, the government has released proposals in the new Terrorism Bill which recommend that suspects can be held for up to 90 days with no charge? In essence this means that criminals who have had the case against them proven in a court of law by a jury (if in the Crown Court or above) will be released early despite the presence of evidence against them while terrorist suspects by the nature of the crime they are SUSPECTED of committing, can be held for up to 90 days with no evidence existing against them. How can this be justified?
I will repeat a point I often make, arresting, detaining and charging suspects is fraught with difficulties, it is a legal minefield and when dealing with foreign suspects or those usually associated with Islamic militant terrorist groups there are the added pressures of finding interpreters, respecting religious practices, etc. However these problems existed at the time of the original Terrorist Act, the only thing that has changed is that since there has been an attack on British soil the British people will accept more stringent measures that before. In addition, could someone tell me why these problems, along with the problems the police have been complaining about surrounding investigations, the difficulty gathering intelligence and the intimidation of witnesses are only being legislated against with such vigour in reference to terrorism? Most of these problems are present with organised criminal gangs and it is arguable that in reality these gangs have more of a detrimental effect on society than terrorism.
The government should be improving their intelligence gathering facilities, although perhaps by MI6 going online, they have gone some way in achieving this. Gaps in intelligence can not be plugged with legislation; we can not legislate our way of terrorism and don?t forget, although the numbers of those held for 90 days may initially be small, it is the presence on the statute books that is the worrying part. Internment was on the statute books since the early 1920?s but it wasn?t until 1971 that it caused so much controversy.
Only in Britain would you see two news stories in the same week which appear to be diametrically opposed, one reports the overcrowding in prisons leading to early release for convicted criminals, the other a new bill proposing to hold suspects for 3 months with no evidence against them which will consequently increase the prison population. Oh the irony.
Knee-jerk reactions are becoming the trademark of the Blair Government so it comes as no surprise to learn the inappropriately named, New Terrorism Bill!!! New Anti ?Terrorism Bill would have been more proper, is being rushed though parliament, the government wants to hold, detain and question suspects for up to ninety days but is this lawful?
Underpinning the governments impending disaster is the small matter of Article 5,(3) of the Human Rights Convention which states that an detained person must be brought before a judge quickly. Currently suspects have to be charged and brought before a court inside 14 days if there is evidence against them. Therefore holding suspects without charge for three months would be a breach of the Article and will lead the government to another uncomfortable quarrel with the European Court.
Sister-In?Law stress?s the point of Internment which was an absolute unnecessary evil, not even Blair?s government would go near that again. In fact he has. Legislating for the proposed 90 days is the legal equivalent of, Internment without Trial. To make way for the new guests of H.Ms government the Blair proposes the early release of prisoners. This is the part I don?t get, is he really suggesting the release of not to bad convicted prisoners at the expense very bad but unconvicted prisoners and where does that leave Innocent until proven guilty?.
Surely there is more chance of prison overcrowding from the astonishing Section 5 “Preparation of terrorist acts” ?
This carries a penalty of up to *life imprisonment* for the “prparation” of terrorist acts, many of which,, if they were *actually committed*, might only attract a penalty of say 2 or 5 or 7 or 10 years in prison !
“Preparation” is only vaguely defined, and so could be used as an “anti-Soviet activities” style catch all offence by a future Governnment.
The Blair government appear to be quite creative in their law making - so creative that the think they can use artistic licence to abandon well established legal rules and procedures such as the rule of law and international law when making law aimed at tackling terrorism. The current government have used terrorism legislation from Northern Ireland which failed in the last century, dusted it off, added to it measures which are even more severe and recycled it for use in this century. The offence of committing acts preparatory to terrorism is indeed abhorrent to most people who understand the dangers inherent in using such sweeping and ill-defined terms in legislation.
Indeed, even the term terrorism is ill-defined and inconsistent. For example some define it as the use of force against indirect targets to force a direct target to enact some change, and usually political motivation is mentioned. This causes difficulty when we look at the IRA in instances where civilians were not the indirect targets or with al Qaeda on September 11th where no direct statement of purpose or demand was made. We need to define the boundaries of the terms before enacting wide-sweeping, draconian legislation that will forever taint our legal system. As Parnell highlights, innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental element in our legal system and it is slowly being undermined, let us hope it does not go the same way as the right to silence!
Parnell rightly mentions Article 5(3) of the European Convention of Human Rights and I feel that it is interesting to note that after September 11th the UK was the only signatory to the ECHR who felt it necessary to declare a ?state of emergency? under the Article 15 procedure, despite Spain suffering a direct international terrorist attack via the Madrid bombings. This suggests to other nations that, notwithstanding their verbal commitments to democracy, the rule of law and traditionally liberal policies such as human rights, along with frequently justifying the use force as necessary to protect these policies, the UK in truth discard such procedures when politically expedient to do so. In reality the stability of a democracy depends on its ability to withstand challenges via an agreed system of checks and balances on the exercise of power. If, when challenged, these systems disintegrate and are supplanted with fragile structures where executive power is absolute and arbitrary the system has failed. I think the system is on its way to failure.