01 Aug 2006

Liberty today applauded sensible new recommendations by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to bring more terror suspects into the courts by turning intelligence into evidence.

In its new report, the JCHR stressed that prosecuting terror suspects is key to preventing future terror attacks and urged the Government to remove obstacles like the ban on phone-tap evidence in courts, a move Liberty supports. 
 
The Committee also criticized recent Home Affairs Select Committee views that terror suspects should be held for up to 28 days before being charged as a preventative measure, even if evidence leading to prosecution is not gathered during their detention. 
 
Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said: 
  
“For five years too much time has been spent building shadowy systems of pseudo-justice based on suspicion and intelligence alone. 

The JCHR has reminded us of the duty to turn intelligence into evidence, charges and proof to effectively prevent future terrorist acts.” 
 
The JCHR further found that under human rights law, the Government has a duty to prosecute those whom it suspects of being involved in terrorist activity in order to prevent loss of life in future attacks. 
 
Contact: Jen Corlew on 020 7378 3656 or 07973 831 128 
 
 
NOTES TO EDITORS
 
1. The JCHR’s new report, “Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: Prosecution and Pre-Charge Detention”, includes the following:
 
• “Intelligence should always be gathered with one eye on the problem of how to turn it into admissible evidence before a judge in a criminal court.”
 
• “The investigating magistrates model (used in many European countries) should not be…imported into our own institutional arrangements, nor is there anything in the investigative approach which might be borrowed or grafted on to our more adversarial tradition in this country.”
 
• “There should be more parliamentary scrutiny of both the security and intelligence agencies of the Government’s claims based on intelligence information.”
 
• All future anti-terror legislation should have a five year life and require renewal by primary legislation rather than ministerial order.