Liberty - Protecting civil liberties, promoting human rights

Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said:
“Last night’s debate and the brave Labour rebels in particular, show that democrats from across the spectrum care passionately about rights and freedoms. MPs of all parties hold courage and conviction about these values and few more so than David Davis. The 42-day policy is a divisive and counterproductive folly and not the first of its kind. Liberty and security can march hand in hand; we don’t defeat terrorism by bowing to it.”
Contact: Jen Corlew on 0207 378 3656 or 0797 3 831 128


NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The Counter-Terror Bill will now continue to the House of Lords but its progression is unlikely to be completed before the parliamentary summer recess. Any changes to the Bill made by Peers are therefore likely to be debated again in the Commons in the autumn.
2. For a copy of Liberty’s briefings on the Report Stage of the Counter-Terrorism Bill or Liberty’s short briefing, “Understanding the pre-charge detention debate” contact Liberty's press office.
3. In a Liberty-commissioned You-Gov poll in March 2008, 54 percent believed that the Government’s motivation for extending pre-charge detention periods to 42 days was because it wants to look “tough on terror.” The YouGov online survey sample involved 1,926 adults and was undertaken from 25th – 27th March 2008.
4. Liberty has pointed out that existing laws and practices undermine the argument for extending pre-charge detention periods including:
● Threshold Test - The Director of Public Prosecutions (responsible for charging decisions) has said longer pre-charge detention is unnecessary because charging practice has recently changed to help the prosecution charge terror suspects earlier. Instead of requiring enough evidence to stand a “realistic prospect of conviction” (the full test) prosecutors can now charge suspects where there is enough evidence to support a “reasonable suspicion that the suspect has committed an offence” and where it is likely that additional evidence will soon be obtained (the threshold test). The DPP has said that the threshold test is now used frequently in terrorism cases – it was only just coming into use when pre-charge detention was considered in 2005. The Director of Public Prosecutions noted in March 2008 that the conviction rate in terror cases stands at 92 percent.
● Emergency measures in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 could already be triggered in a genuine emergency in which the police are overwhelmed by multiple terror plots, allowing the Government to temporarily extend pre-charge detention subject to Parliamentary and judicial oversight. Safeguards offered by Government today offer far less protection than that offered in the Civil Contingencies Act.
5. In 2007 Liberty formally launched its Charge or Release campaign to stop Government plans to extend the period terror suspects are held without charge. Liberty is mobilising its members, the public and politicians to oppose any extension beyond the current 28-day detention period, which is nearly four times longer than that of most comparable democracies. Liberty’s Charge or Release campaign adverts which compare pre-charge detention periods in 15 democracies has run in national newspapers and been displayed on billboards across London.  www.chargeorrelease.com
6. On 12 November 2007, Liberty released a comprehensive study of terrorist pre-charge detention powers in 15 countries, including the United States, Spain, Russia, France and Turkey. Liberty’s “International Charge or Release Study”, based on advice and assistance from lawyers and academics around the world, demonstrates that the existing 28-day limit already far exceeds equivalent limits in other comparable democracies. In countries that do not have the exact concept of “pre-charge detention”, like France and Germany, lawyers qualified in those jurisdictions have identified the closest equivalent. These findings have subsequently been supported by advice received from the head of research at the Italian parliament, the French chief of counter-terrorism prosecution as well as by the Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights who stated that 42 days “would be way out of line with equivalent detention limits elsewhere in Europe”