One of Britain’s most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely without charge.

…

Ken Jones, the president of Acpo, told The Observer that in some cases there was a need to hold terrorist suspects without charge for ‘as long as it takes’. He said such hardline measures were the only way to counter the complex, global nature of terrorist cells planning further attacks in Britain and that civil liberty arguments were untenable in light of the evolving terror threat.

…

‘We need to go there [unlimited detention] and I think that politicians of all parties and the public have great faith in the judiciary to make sure that’s used in the most proportionate way possible.’

The proposal has provoked anger among civil rights groups. ‘It is coming to the point when we have to ask serious questions about the role of Acpo in a constitutional democracy,’ said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty. ‘We elect politicians to determine legislation and we expect chief constables to uphold the rule of law, not campaign for internment.’

And of course, the people of Britain *do* have great faith in the judiciary. Never mind that it’s a system rife with conflicts of interest. Never mind that up until last year, the head of the entire judiciary was a political appointee *and* part of the executive and the legislature. Never mind that the highest court of appeal remains the House of Lords… the second house of legislature, who are also, by the way, largely politically appointed (357 by Blair alone). And never mind that the courts *already* ruled that indefinite detention of suspects was in violation of the Human Rights Act 1998 and EU Human Rights law.

I trust the US government no further than I can throw George Bush, and even with our whole constitutionally enshrined “checks and balances” system, look at the mess we’ve managed to create. Asking the public to agree suspension of civil rights indefinitely based on the say so of the pro-war prime minister, inept police and politically entrenched judiciary, in the face of ongoing outcry over detainees in guantanamo, is egregiously arrogant. Further, given the problem of home-grown terrorism in the UK, this is law which is likely to be applied to the british citizenry far more often than any foreign nationals. Those who should be most protected by British law, will suddenly find themselves outside it.

If we’ve learned nothing else from the fiasco that is the bush administration, surely we should have learned this is one path we do not want to follow.

anti-flag – turncoat

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uk, terrorism, civil liberties