Chief prosecutor denounces plan for secret terror
trials
The government’s chief prosecutor has
launched an outspoken attack on plans by David Blunkett, the home
secretary, to try terrorists without juries and in secret. Ken
Macdonald QC, the director of public prosecutions, says in an
article in today’s Sunday Times that plans for trials without juries
of some terror suspects would undermine public faith in the criminal
justice system.
In his attack on proposals expected in Blunkett’s forthcoming draft
terrorism bill to limit the right to jury trial for Al-Qaeda and
other Islamic terror suspects, Macdonald says: “To be effective
against . . . terrorism, we need to call on legislation that is
clear, flexible and proportionate to the threat.
“Nobody wants to throw out the baby with the bath water; we do not
want to fight terrorism by destroying precisely those things
terrorism is trying to take away from us.
“Open, liberal democracies fail if they try to protect themselves by
becoming illiberal, closed and repressive.”
Macdonald says he favours proposals by ministers to allow
telephone-tapping evidence from MI5 and police to be used in open
court. He also believes that “minor players” in terrorist plots
should be offered some immunity from prosecution in return for
information.
But he emphasises: “Changes to the criminal trial process have to be
approached with great caution and a clear head.”
Macdonald, who as head of the Crown Prosecution Service, has overall
responsibility for charging and prosecuting all terrorist suspects
in England and Wales, says that some basic rights “cannot be
negotiated away in a free and democratic society”.
“So criminal trials must remain routinely open and take place before
independent and impartial tribunals. In Britain people have great
affection for trial by jury . . . Public faith in public justice
will not survive abandonment of these fundamental principles.”
Macdonald waited to launch his broadside until after last week’s
Queen’s speech, when the Home Office said draconian new
counter-terrorism measures would be contained in a draft bill,
expected to be published in the new year.
The bill would allow for anti-terror courts without juries, which
are expected to hear evidence in secret before special
security-cleared judges.
Macdonald’s strong comments amount to the clearest signal yet that
Blunkett will face a fierce battle not just in parliament but in
Whitehall over the plans.
Other senior legal figures including Lord Woolf, the lord chief
justice, have previously criticised government plans to limit trial
by jury in ordinary criminal trials. However, Macdonald is the first
to come out against the new proposals to limit the right to a jury
trial in terrorism cases.
Source: The Sunday Times
Date: 28 November 2004 |
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