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LONDON, June 28: Britain’s High Court ruled on Wednesday that ‘control orders’ confining six terrorism suspects to partial house arrest breached their human rights, throwing out a key plank of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s security policy.
Under the orders, terrorism suspects who have not been charged with a crime have been electronically tagged, confined to their houses for most of the day and banned from using computers and telephones or meeting people without permission.
“The six control orders are incompatible with the respondents’ right to liberty under article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights,” said Justice Jeremy Sullivan.
“It follows that the Secretary of State had no power to make the orders and they must therefore all be quashed.”
But Home Secretary John Reid, who runs the programme for the government, said the control orders were necessary for national security and he would try to overturn the ruling on appeal.
“Public safety is our top priority,” he said in a statement. “The obligations contained in control orders are necessary to protect the public and proportionate to the threat that these individuals pose.”
Mr Blair rushed the new powers through parliament last year after courts threw out post-Sept. 11, 2001, emergency measures that had allowed police to confine foreign suspected terrorists in high security prisons indefinitely without trial.
The control orders can apply to British citizens as well as foreigners and do not allow them to be jailed, but provide for restrictions amounting to effective house arrest.
Last year’s anti-terrorism measures caused an uproar in parliament over the degree to which rights should be suspended.
Parliament gave police the power to jail terrorism suspects for a month pending investigation, but refused Mr Blair’s request to extend the period to 90 days.
The government has also ordered dozens of suspects deported, but courts are deciding whether they can be sent to countries with poor human rights records.
BALANCE: “It always comes down to the same argument about the balance between civil liberties and security, and it’s one that in times like those we face now is not going to suit everybody,” said Rebecca Cox, counter-terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank.
Mr Blair has repeatedly criticised judges for placing too much emphasis on the rights of suspects and says the system needs to be rebalanced in favour of protecting the public.
The judge said government lawyers are to appeal against the case at a hearing scheduled for Monday. The six men, who have not been named, remain subject to the restrictions until the appeal.
Under the European Convention, a country may not deprive people of their liberty without trial unless the country first declares an emergency and ‘derogates’ from the convention, ordering the suspension of basic rights.
Mr Blair’s 2005 law would allow the government to derogate from the convention in an emergency, but the government has not declared one, arguing that its partial house arrest powers do not amount to depriving suspects of their liberty.
Lawyer Natalia Garcia, who represents two of the six suspects, said the judge’s ruling showed that the government had attempted ‘derogation by sleight of hand’.
“What they have done is to impose conditions of such draconian severity as to be a deprivation of liberty,” she said. “It is heartening that courts will still act as a check against the government when it seeks to ride roughshod over basic human rights and civil liberties.”—Reuters
