Liberty stressed that despite the Government amendments, counter-productive extension of pre-charge detention would still be triggered to deal with individual cases rather than genuine emergencies, making the promise of increased Parliamentary oversight meaningless.
Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti said: “After all the dancing around invisible goalposts, these amendments give the game away. Yet again in the “War on Terror”, sweeping, unnecessary and counterproductive powers are dressed up with convoluted fig leaves and frightening adjectives. Forty-two days detention without charge has not been transformed into the emergency power promised by Ministers. The policy is as dangerous as ever.”
Flaws in the Government’s amendments to the Counter-Terror Bill include:
● Not Genuine Emergency Powers: The proposal has been dressed up with more language about “grave and exceptional terrorist threats,” but there is still no legal requirement for a terrorist emergency to exist and no requirement for the Home Secretary to show that 42 days detention is urgently needed to deal with any threat. Forty-two days could still become routine, triggered for operational convenience in individual cases.
● Parliamentary Oversight: The amendments promise more Parliamentary oversight but, however diligent our Parliamentarians, this could not provide anything more than a rubber-stamping exercise. The 42 day limit would still be triggered to keep a particular individual in custody. This would, therefore, involve Parliament debating individual cases which could prejudice future prosecutions.
● Judicial Oversight: The role of a judge in approving the use of 42 days in individual cases is of little comfort as, before a person is charged there is, by definition, no evidence for a court to test. No CPS application to detain a person for between 14 and 28 days has ever been refused. The courts would not be able to overturn these “reserve powers” if triggered in a disproportionate or irrational way or in a way which breaches human rights.
For 10 months, Liberty’s Charge or Release campaign has focused on building a cross-party political and public campaign against the unnecessary and divisive policy, which would create injustice and undermine community relations.
Liberty’s Charge or Release campaign has the support of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, political activist Noam Chomsky, Pakistan’s Human Rights Commissioner Asma Jahangir, designer Vivienne Westwood, former Chief Constable Geoffrey Dear, UNITE, UNISON, National Union of Journalists and the General Synod. Opposition parties and a large number of Labour back-bench MPs also oppose these proposals.
Contact: Jen Corlew on 0207 378 3656 or 0797 3 831 128
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. Download Liberty's short briefing,
Understanding the pre-charge detention debate. Liberty is also producing briefing materials focusing on the amendments tabled today include a chart showing how the powers would operate in practice.
2. 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 25 – 27 March 2008.
3. Liberty proposes the following counter-terror proposals be pursued instead of extending pre-charge detention:
- Remove the bar on the use of intercept (phone tap) evidence because its inadmissibility is a major factor in being unable to bring charges in terror cases. Liberty calls for the Privy Council review’s findings on intercept evidence to be implemented before the Government considers extending pre-charge detention.
- Allow post-charge questioning in terror cases provided that the initial charge is legitimate and there is judicial oversight. This will allow for a charge to be supplemented with further offences at a later stage. Current proposals in the Counter-terrorism Bill do not include judicial safeguards and do not allow police to question suspects about other offences after being charged. To read Liberty’s Counter-Terrorism Briefings for Second Reading follow the links on the right.
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. See
www.chargeorrelease.com6. 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 as well as by the Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights who stated that 42 days would be “would be way out of line with equivalent detention limits elsewhere in Europe”
