British values of freedom and fairness still at risk

26 January 2011

The UK's unrivalled reputation for upholding the principles of freedom and fairness is still put at risk, despite a Government review of control orders.

The Government has today announced new counter-terrorism measures.

Law Society President Linda Lee said the new measures still don’t go far enough to preserve the rule of law and access to justice.

"The new regime will still impose significant restrictions on liberty including a nightly curfew, electronic tagging and severely restricted communication, based on unproven allegations and evidence that the suspect is often not aware of and therefore unable to answer.

"Although the restrictions will be less severe, our previous concerns About control orders remain.

"We welcome a reduction of the pre-detention limit from 28 to 14 days and the tightening of police stop and search powers.

"However, the right balance must be struck between national security and ensuring people have the right to know the charges against them and the right to defend themselves.

"We are pleased that the Government has agreed to work to assess the advantage, cost and risk of a legally viable model for the use of intercepted evidence and that a report will be presented to Parliament during the summer.

"The usual principles of criminal law and criminal process should be utilised, so that where suspicion of involvement in a criminal offence exists, the person should be subject to a criminal trial in the usual way.

"We don’t believe the new measures introduced today go far enough to achieve that.

"In our submission to Government on this issue, we asked that any alternative measures avoid the draconian restrictions on liberty that the existing regime imposes."

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