10 Oct 2006

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown called today for new laws to imprison terror suspects without charge beyond 28 days. The human rights group Liberty expressed grave concern that this counterproductive measure, defeated in the House of Commons last year, undermines the right to a prompt trial and could act as a recruitment tool for extremist groups.

Director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti said: 
 
“The Chancellor’s speech contains neither new thinking nor additional comfort. There is already judicial and parliamentary oversight in the existing regime which is no substitute for charges and evidence.” 
 
“Ninety days is equivalent to a six month prison sentence without even being charged or tried. Terrorist recruiters will rub their hands with glee.” 
 
Contact: Jen Corlew on 0207 378 3656 or 0797 383 1128 
 
Notes to editors:
 
Liberty’s concerns with the Government’s proposals for 90 day pre-charge detention include: 
 
• Plans to allow three month detentions without charge will have a severe impact on community relations. This would allow for the equivalent of a six month custodial sentence. It is over twenty times the pre-charge detention time limit for murder. If the police have genuine difficulty in gathering evidence we should look for more proportionate ways of dealing with the problem. 
 
• The legality of pre-charge detention is governed by Article 5(3) of the Human Rights Act. This provides that anyone arrested or detained must be brought before a judge within a reasonable time and tried or bailed. It is extremely unlikely that any attempt to allow three month detention could be compatible with Article 5, regardless of whether the detainee is regularly brought before a judge to authorise detention as required in the Bill. 
 
• On 6 October 2005, Andy Hayman, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, wrote to the-then Home Secretary explaining why he believed the extension to 90 days was necessary. The letter contained a number of theoretical and actual case studies and a summary of the difficulties in evidence gathering that the police could face. The difficulties can be summarised as relating to resource issues (such as finding interpreters), time and logistical difficulties (such as delays caused by distance and establishing identity) and technological or forensic difficulties (such as breaking encryption). In addition to these, the Assistant Commissioner listed a few ‘difficulties’ which we do not accept as genuine problems. For example, ‘religious observance’ would only take up a short amount of time. The need to pray should not have any particular impact as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) specifies the need for regular breaks anyway. Any delays caused by solicitors acting for several clients are unlikely to be significant as more than one representative from a firm is likely to be involved in taking instructions.  
 
• Liberty does not intend to deal with each justification and cannot claim to have better knowledge of these problems than the police and security services. Instead we make a number of suggestions of more proportionate solutions to these difficulties. 
 
Liberty’s suggestions to reduce investigative problems for police include:
 
• The bar on intercept evidence in criminal trials must be removed because its inadmissibility is a major factor in being unable to bring charges. 
 
• Review the way in which people that have already been charged can be re-interviewed and recharged as further evidence is uncovered. This will allow for a charge to be replaced at a later stage of proceedings with a more appropriate offence. 
 
• A civil court can currently make an order requiring an encryption key to be handed over. Anyone failing to comply with such an order will be in contempt of court and can be detained in custody for a fixed period. This means they do not have to be under arrest with the custody clock running. 
 
• Section 47 of PACE allows for people to be bailed to reappear back at a police station while the police continue investigations. Attaching bail conditions such as curfew, reporting, or the surrender of a passport to Section 47 could enable these powers to apply to terrorism cases.