Background Briefing

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Summary

Parliament should take a long view, and resist the temptation to grant powers to governments which compromise the rights and liberties of individuals. The situations which may appear to justify the granting of such powers are temporary—the loss of freedom is often permanent.

             U.K. Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, November 20011

The control orders envisioned in the Prevention of Terrorism Bill 2005 (hereafter “the Bill”) offer a seriously flawed alternative to the disastrous policy of indefinite detention under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, a policy ruled contrary to human rights law by the House of Lords Judicial Committee. Human Rights Watch acknowledges that the government has a responsibility to protect the public from the threat of terrorism. However, the government has a corresponding duty to ensure that counter-terrorism measures are fully compatible with its obligations under human rights law.

The Bill empowers the executive branch to impose what amount to criminal sanctions on the basis of a “reasonable suspicion” founded on secret evidence, and subject only to delayed and narrow judicial review. The lack of procedural safeguards seriously undermines the right to a fair trial, the presumption of innocence and the right to an effective defence. Fundamental due process rights may not be so seriously compromised without the U.K. running foul of its obligations under international human rights law.

The Bill also grants the government the power to introduce a form of control order amounting to house arrest, subject the government obtaining a new derogation from the right to liberty under article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. House arrest is a gross interference with liberty which impacts not only the person subject to the order, but any family members with whom he resides. It is a form of human rights abuse more often associated with apartheid South Africa and the military dictatorship in Burma than liberal democracies.

The threat from terrorism should be met through the criminal justice system. The government argues that at present it is unable to prosecute some of those whom it suspects of involvement in terrorism, because the evidence cannot be used in court. Yet the Bill fails to relax the ban on intercept evidence, despite widespread support for such a measure, and contains no other measures to facilitate such prosecutions. The absence of any initiatives makes the government’s assertion that prosecution is the “preferred approach” ring hollow.

The companion policy to control orders is the use of diplomatic assurances to enable the deportation of foreign terrorism suspects to countries where they face torture or prohibited ill-treatment. This policy is fundamentally incompatible with the absolute obligation not to expose people to torture or prohibited ill-treatment. While this issue is not addressed in the Bill under consideration, Human Rights Watch wishes to draw attention to its concerns about the policy. Our research indicates that such assurances are an ineffective safeguard against torture and prohibited ill-treatment. The government’s policy is therefore likely to result in the return of individuals to torture, and risk the erosion of the absolute prohibition against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment.



[1] Joint Committee on Human Rights, Second Report “Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill,” November 6, 2001, paragraph 76.


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