The home secretary's proposals to combat terrorism are more in tune with dictatorship than the "free" society they are supposed to defend, argues Shami Chakrabarti

Shami Chakrabarti
Tuesday February 3, 2004
The Guardian

What bitter irony. Messrs Bush and Blair begin to react to widespread concerns about the intelligence that led us to war. Simultaneously, Mr Blunkett contemplates criminal convictions and endless incarceration on the basis of secret intelligence alone.

What is to be left of democracy or the rule of law in such a topsy-turvy world? No juries? No presumption of innocence? No defence lawyers or trials held in public? Phrases such as "pre-emptive detention" and "vetted judges" are chilling indeed. All this in a "war against terror" waged in the name of our freedom.

Not that any of what the home secretary is suggesting is original. It used to be standard procedure in the communist regimes of eastern Europe and was copied by, amongst others, Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Whenever the British press reported on one of these trials the word "show" invariably appeared.

Let us remember that we already have the broadest and toughest special terror laws in Europe. There is extended pre-charge detention in terror cases and security service evidence may enjoy public interest immunity. The home secretary has powers to proscribe organisations (whose members may be prosecuted). There are offences covering funding, inciting and conspiring to terrorism and offences relating to possessing material with terrorist intentions.

Chief constables (with the home secretary's approval) designate whole cities and counties for stop and search without even suspicion (if "expedient to preventing terrorism"). The entire Metropolitan police area appears to have been so designated on a rolling basis since February of 2001. These designations are made in secret (with no judicial or even parliamentary warrant) and the powers used to harass peace protesters.

Further, the home secretary has led the United Kingdom to derogate from the right against arbitrary detention (Article 5 of the Convention on Human Rights). The UK is the only European country to have done this. Under his 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, in a poignant echo of the law-free zone that is Guantanamo Bay, 14 foreign national suspects have been detained with neither charge nor trial for well over two years.

The Home Office has conceded that this detention may be based on intelligence obtained by torture around the world.

Mr Blunkett argues that his proposals will make us more secure. But we tried something similar during the 1970s when special courts were introduced in Northern Ireland. Suspects were interned without benefit of jury trial or independent legal representation. The terrorist threat did not go away; it grew as new recruits flocked to sign up with the Provisional IRA.

The battle against terrorism is, of course, about security, but it is also about winning hearts and minds. If we start treating British Muslims in the way the home secretary is suggesting, we can be sure that the "winners" will be extremist Islamic groups, who will have a propaganda field day.

Mr Blunkett is no lover of lawyers and he may not be alone in that. He should stop confusing his resentment for the legal establishment with contempt for the rule of law, however. Some of us have met a few unpleasant politicians in our time. Still we cherish the value (however tarnished in recent times) of parliamentary democracy. He should also remember that democracy without fair trials and respect for the rule of law is little different from mob rule.

One final irony. Are we entering an age when the prime work of lawyers and judges will be in manning public enquiries into essentially political scandals? Are we similarly entering an age when criminal convictions are to be obtained at the will of politicians?

· Shami Chakrabarti is the director of human rights group Liberty