The decision by the European Union Court of Justice (not to be confused with the Council of Europe's Court of Human Rights), reported in The Times today, 12 June 2009, overturning an order freezing the assets of Abu Qatada, the radical Islamist cleric, will add to the confusion which surrounds British counter-terrorism laws.
It follows the decision two days ago by Britain's Law Lords that that suspects held under control orders must be given details of the allegations against them.
Abu Qatada, currently held in a maximum security prison awaiting deportation to the USA, is permitted to gain access to all his accounts and any other assests within a little over two months unless the British government decides to appeal the decision.
Students of security policy and intelligence-led activity will struggle to understand why governments find it hard to deal with terrorism within conditions of lawfulness. There has been a fairly comprehensive failure on the part of politicians and lawyers to set out the facts; frequently the running has been made by lawyers (solicitors and barristers) acting for defendants.
This highlights the need for the government's legal officers to do far more to explain current problems and for academics to undertake cross-disciplinary studies in terrorism and law as well as some empirical analyses of lawyers' political positions.
No one can doubt that the legal profession has not just become more politically active in recent times but seems increasingly to support radical and oppositional positions in respect of Britain's raft of counter-terrorism laws.
With many MPs currently hors de combat because of their own problems understanding democracy's rules, the time for some major public statements and explanations is now overdue.
Sources:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6479177.ece
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/reports/article6472457.ece
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo1_6308/ecran-d-accueil
http://www.echr.coe.int/echr/Homepage_EN
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment