Restrict freedom to preserve liberty
The Register is discussing the UK Government’s current anti-terrorism legislation. This legislation gives the Home Secretary the power to restrict anyone’s freedom of association, communication or expression based on a suspicion that they are involved in terrorism or support or give comfort to terrorists. Notice that there is explicitly no mention of the courts in this – the Home Secretary would have the power to impose these control orders with no recourse to the courts or judicial oversight of any kind. The only limitation that the Government has allowed to be imposed on it is that orders that deprive someone of physical freedom (i.e. imprison them in their home or elsewhere) will have to come from a judge – but anything else is entirely at the Home Secretary’s pleasure.
This is, to me, a worrying extension of power. At the moment, we are assured that these powers will be used only for “a very few” cases. But how few is “a few”, and does the fact that it’s only a few make it somehow right? How long would it be before a government starts to extend the reach of these powers? There is no limit at present on the exercise of these powers beyond a reasonable suspicion of some involvement in terrorism, and this suspicion need not even be justified in public. Restricting somone’s freedom on the basis of no more than suspicion strikes at the very nature of justice as it is practiced in the UK.
pax et bonum
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