Phil in Paris
12-19-2004, 07:37 AM
Holding foreign terror suspects without charges violates rights -- setback for Blair
Lizette Alvarez, New York Times
Friday, December 17, 2004
London -- Britain's highest court ruled Thursday that the British government cannot indefinitely detain foreigners suspected of terrorism without charging or trying them, and it called the process a violation of European human rights laws.
A specially convened panel of judges in the Law Lords ruled 8-1 in favor of nine foreign, Muslim men who have been in detention, most of them in Belmarsh Prison in London, for as long as three years. The prison has been called "Britain's Guantanamo" by human rights groups.
In its powerfully worded decision, the court said that the government's "draconian" measures unjustly discriminated against foreigners, since they do not apply to British citizens and constitute a lopsided response to the threat of a terrorist attack.
The judges deemed it a clear violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, a declaration that complicates the British government's strategy on combating terrorism.
The ruling by the Law Lords, a panel of senior judges who sit in the House of Lords and act as the country's highest court, parallels a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that said "a state of war is not a blank check for the president."
Using the sharpest language of the nine judges, Lord Leonard Hoffman, said the case was one of the most important decided by the court in recent years. "It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention," he wrote.
He added that the government's actions posed a greater threat to the nation than terrorism. "The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these," he wrote.
The ground-breaking decision removes one of the government's anti- terrorism tools and muddles its ability to deal with suspected foreign terrorists. It also forces Prime Minister Tony Blair, his Cabinet and the Parliament to either modify the law or release the men and do away with the law altogether. The law must be renewed next year and is scheduled to expire in 2006. Until the government makes that decision, the detainees will remain in prison.
Gareth Peirce, one of the lawyers representing the detainees, said the government must now move quickly to release the men. "There is no escape route for the government, no escape route whatsoever," she told the Press Association.
Arguing that special circumstances required special laws, the government put forward the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act in 2001 immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. To enact the measure, the British government had to opt out of parts of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The law allows the Home Office to indefinitely detain, without charges, those foreigners it suspects of terrorist-related activities who cannot be deported home for legal reasons. The detainees are free to leave Britain voluntarily at any time.
The detainees are not told why they are in prison and have no access to the evidence the government holds against them, primarily because the government believes it to be too sensitive to reveal.
They also cannot hire lawyers. Instead, the government appoints lawyers with security clearance for them and permits the lawyers to see the evidence and argue on the detainees' behalf. The lawyers, though, are barred from discussing any of the information with their clients.
Seventeen men are believed to have been detained in Britain under the law, and nine are still in detention. One of them is Abu Qatada, a Syrian cleric considered by Britain to be the spiritual adviser to Mohammed Atta, the chief hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"What defines a democratic country is the rule of law, and a cornerstone of the rule of law is a right to trial by jury and the right to defend yourself with legal representation," said Barry Hugill, a spokesman for Liberty, a group that worked for the men's release. "This is exactly what was denied these men. Putting people in indefinite detention is what they did in Eastern Europe and in Saddam's Iraq. I am told that is what we are fighting against."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/17/MNG9DADED61.DTL
Lizette Alvarez, New York Times
Friday, December 17, 2004
London -- Britain's highest court ruled Thursday that the British government cannot indefinitely detain foreigners suspected of terrorism without charging or trying them, and it called the process a violation of European human rights laws.
A specially convened panel of judges in the Law Lords ruled 8-1 in favor of nine foreign, Muslim men who have been in detention, most of them in Belmarsh Prison in London, for as long as three years. The prison has been called "Britain's Guantanamo" by human rights groups.
In its powerfully worded decision, the court said that the government's "draconian" measures unjustly discriminated against foreigners, since they do not apply to British citizens and constitute a lopsided response to the threat of a terrorist attack.
The judges deemed it a clear violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, a declaration that complicates the British government's strategy on combating terrorism.
The ruling by the Law Lords, a panel of senior judges who sit in the House of Lords and act as the country's highest court, parallels a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that said "a state of war is not a blank check for the president."
Using the sharpest language of the nine judges, Lord Leonard Hoffman, said the case was one of the most important decided by the court in recent years. "It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention," he wrote.
He added that the government's actions posed a greater threat to the nation than terrorism. "The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these," he wrote.
The ground-breaking decision removes one of the government's anti- terrorism tools and muddles its ability to deal with suspected foreign terrorists. It also forces Prime Minister Tony Blair, his Cabinet and the Parliament to either modify the law or release the men and do away with the law altogether. The law must be renewed next year and is scheduled to expire in 2006. Until the government makes that decision, the detainees will remain in prison.
Gareth Peirce, one of the lawyers representing the detainees, said the government must now move quickly to release the men. "There is no escape route for the government, no escape route whatsoever," she told the Press Association.
Arguing that special circumstances required special laws, the government put forward the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act in 2001 immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. To enact the measure, the British government had to opt out of parts of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The law allows the Home Office to indefinitely detain, without charges, those foreigners it suspects of terrorist-related activities who cannot be deported home for legal reasons. The detainees are free to leave Britain voluntarily at any time.
The detainees are not told why they are in prison and have no access to the evidence the government holds against them, primarily because the government believes it to be too sensitive to reveal.
They also cannot hire lawyers. Instead, the government appoints lawyers with security clearance for them and permits the lawyers to see the evidence and argue on the detainees' behalf. The lawyers, though, are barred from discussing any of the information with their clients.
Seventeen men are believed to have been detained in Britain under the law, and nine are still in detention. One of them is Abu Qatada, a Syrian cleric considered by Britain to be the spiritual adviser to Mohammed Atta, the chief hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"What defines a democratic country is the rule of law, and a cornerstone of the rule of law is a right to trial by jury and the right to defend yourself with legal representation," said Barry Hugill, a spokesman for Liberty, a group that worked for the men's release. "This is exactly what was denied these men. Putting people in indefinite detention is what they did in Eastern Europe and in Saddam's Iraq. I am told that is what we are fighting against."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/17/MNG9DADED61.DTL