Civil rights activists have damned the Home Office's legislation announced in the Queen's Speech.

John Wadham, the director of Liberty, attacked plans to end the legal principle of double jeopardy, laws aimed at confiscating assets and allowing the use of previous convictions.

"The government wants to give the police more powers and erode the rights of innocent people and those caught up in the criminal justice system still further. This is despite the fact that those rights have been steadily eroded," Wadham said.

He expressed concern over the increased possibility of wrongful convictions.

"The use of previous convictions is an attack on the fundamental presumption of innocence. Introducing details of previous convictions, may lead juries to convict where there is insufficient evidence and therefore to miscarriages of justice," Wadham said.

He voiced particular anger over the proposals to abolish the double jeopardy rules.

"People who have been arrested and prosecuted, and who will have been locked up in prison for months before they face trial, should be free once they have been acquitted by a jury. It cannot be right to force them to go through this all over again. We are particularly concerned if this new law is retrospective because those acquitted many years ago will be subject to a new trial," Wadham said.

The group did support the government for creating an independent police complaints commission.

"It's important that the new Commission is genuinely and visibly independent of the police and is fully-resourced to investigate serious complaints. Liberty's report on the need for an IPCC was circulated by the Home Office last year," Wadham said.