Today, the ICJ and JUSTICE, its British Section, submitted a joint briefing to the 2nd reading of the House of Lords on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill.
The briefing raises serious objections with regard to the new Prevention of Terrorism Bill and its compatibility with human rights law.
It is the third piece of UK counter-terrorism legislation since 2000 and in some ways the most far reaching. It introduces a system of prolonged preventive control orders that could severely curtail a whole range of individual freedom on the basis of suspicion. A breach of these orders would entail criminal responsibility.
It risks creating a parallel legal regime for terror suspects outside the criminal justice system.
JUSTICE and the ICJ consider the interferences into human rights under the law disproportionate and regard its procedural and parliamentary control insufficient.
The briefing also challenges the introduction of administrative detention in the form of house arrest orders subject to subsequent derogation.
If adopted by the House of Lords it is likely to be subject to serious challenge both in relation to the proportionality of the law itself and the implementation of control orders in practice.
United Kingdom-Prevention of Terrorism Bill-legal submission-2005 (full text, PDF)