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Terror detainees
win Lords appeal
Detaining foreign
terrorism suspects without trial breaks human rights laws, the UK's
highest court has ruled. In a blow to the government's anti-terror
measures, the House of Lords law lords ruled by an eight to one
majority in favour of appeals by nine detainees.
Most of the men are being indefinitely held in Belmarsh prison,
south London.
The law lords said the "draconian" measures were incompatible with
European human rights laws and the government must pay the appeal
costs.
Belmarsh prison has been dubbed Britain's Guantanamo Bay by civil
rights campaigners opposed to the use of emergency anti-terror laws.
The detainees took their case to the House of Lords after the Court
of Appeal backed the Home Office's powers to hold them without limit
or charge.
Constitutional importance
The government opted out of part of the European Convention on Human
Rights concerning the right to a fair trial in order to bring in
anti-terrorism legislation in response to the 11 September attacks
in the US.
Any foreign national suspected of links with terrorism can be
detained or can opt to be deported. However those detained cannot be
deported if this would mean persecution in their homeland.
On Thursday, senior law lord Lord Bingham said the rules were
incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights as they
allowed "detention of suspected international terrorists in a way
that discriminates on the ground of nationality or immigration
status".
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, in his ruling, said: "Indefinite
imprisonment without charge or trial is anathema in any country
which observes the rule of law. "It deprives the detained person of
the protection a criminal trial is intended to afford."
He said the main problem for the government's case was that it was
trying to justify detention without trial for foreign suspects while
using lesser steps for British citizens accused of being
international terrorists.
The case was heard by a panel of nine Law Lords rather than the
usual five because of the constitutional importance of the legal
challenge.
State of emergency
Ben Emmerson QC, representing seven of the detainees, said the men
had already been in custody for nearly three years on the grounds
that they might be supporters of international terrorism.
He said they had been given no idea when, if ever, they would be
released, had never been formally interviewed and there was no
prospect they would ever be put on trial.
When the men were first held, they took their cases to the Special
Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
The commission ruled on 30 July, 2002 that the anti-terror act
unjustifiably discriminated against foreign nationals as British
people could be held in the same way.
The Home Office went to the Court of Appeal which overturned the
SIAC ruling in October 2002.
The court said the legislation was not in breach of the European
Convention and opting out was necessary because there was a state of
emergency threatening the life of the nation.
Source: BBC News
16 December 2004
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