Protecting Freedom

14 April 2006



High Court Says UK Anti-Terror Laws “Incompatible” with Human Rights

A British High Court has ruled that control orders brought in as part of last year’s anti-terror rules are “incompatible” with human rights. The court held that a control order denies the person affected by it the right to a fair hearing as required by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Hooray for Europe and for an independent judiciary.

The man in question is known only as “MB,” and his case is the first of 12 involving control orders which are coming up for review by the High Court. The British government slapped the order on him, which is a form of house arrest (he is also required to check in with the police daily and has surrendered his passport), in September 2005 because it feared he was going to leave the UK to fight British and US troops in Iraq. If true, the Kensington Review has no problem with the man being sent to jail, held in a POW camp or any other form of detention. There is one proviso, though; the government must prove it.

Mr. Justice Sullivan wrote in his opinion:

To say that the [Prevention of Terrorism] Act does not give the respondent in this case ... ‘a fair hearing’ in the determination of his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights would be an understatement.

The court would be failing in its duty under the Human Rights Act, a duty imposed upon the court by Parliament, if it did not say, loud and clear that the procedure under the Act whereby the court merely reviews the lawfulness of the Secretary of State’s decision to make the order upon the basis of the material available to him at that early stage are conspicuously unfair.
He also said that the government, in passing the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, was permitting ministers to decide what the rights of the accused were. There was a “thin veneer of legality” placed over this, but it didn’t “disguise the reality” that the accused were being denied their human rights. The New Labour Government will appeal. A spokesman for the Home Office said, “The Government believes that control orders are the best way of addressing the continuing threat posed by suspected terrorists who cannot currently be prosecuted or, in respect of foreign nationals, removed from the UK.” Which begs the question, if they are suspected terrorists, why can’t they be prosecuted? Could it be lack of evidence? If so, what distinguishes the guilty from the innocent, a minister’s gut instinct?

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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