Tom Griffin (London, OK): In order to get the the Counter-terrorism Bill through the Commons in June, the Government promised a parliamentary vote if it was necessary to extend the detention of terror suspects temporarily for up to 42 days.
That proposal has been systematically taken apart today in a report from the House of Lords Constitution Committee which warns that Parliament is 'institutionally ill-equipped' for the role which is being thrust upon it.
we are concerned that a judge determining an application for extended detention will be called upon to exercise powers a matter of days or perhaps hours after a highly politically charged debate in Parliament in which there has been a clear division on party lines and over which there continues to be party political controversy. There is a risk that this will be perceived to undermine the independence of the judiciary.
The Committee gives the Government credit for trying to make the process more democratically accountable, but warns that the result is muddled.
The Bill risks conflating the roles of Parliament and the judiciary, which would be quite inappropriate. It is ill-advised to create a decision-making process that requires Parliament and the judiciary to ask and answer similar questions within a short space of time—or at all. Far from being a system of checks and balances, this is a recipe for confusion that places on Parliament tasks that it cannot effectively fulfil and arguably risks undermining the rights of fair trial for the individuals concerned.
The Guardian suggests that these criticisms add up to a signficant problem for Ministers:
The critical report will fuel the determination of peers to throw out the government's controversial proposal to extend the current 28-day limit on the pre-charge detention of terror suspects when parliament returns in October. The autumn is likely to be a crucial time in Gordon Brown's attempts to reassert his authority, and today's report raises the likelihood of another damaging row.
The Committee is also critical of proposals that are under much less political pressure than the 42-day detention plan. In particular, it warns against giving Ministers the power to remove juries from inquests.
We asked Lord West whether it might not be more appropriate for such a decision to be taken by a judge. We did so because it seemed to us to be constitutionally inappropriate for ministers to be directing how inquests are conducted, for two reasons. First, coroners are independent judicial officers and inquests are judicial proceedings. Second, inquests in which secret material may need to be considered may very well involve deaths that may have been caused by the actions of agents of the state. Our view was that a more constitutionally acceptable model would be to provide for the Secretary of State to apply for an order from a senior judge for an inquest to proceed without a jury where secret material has to be considered.
By the time the Lords come to consider the matter in the autumn, an inquest will have opened into a death that was indeed caused by the actions of agents of the state - that of Jean Charles De Menezes. Perhaps that will clarify the issues at stake.
