Another blow for democracy and a clear implication that the Guantanamo
detentions are illegal too.
Law Lords blow to anti-terror rule
The indefinite detention without trial of foreign nationals under emergency
terror laws is incompatible with European human rights laws, the Law Lords
have ruled.
The decision, which comes as a final blow to former Home Secretary David
Blunkett, throws the Government's anti-terror regime into a state of chaos.
Nine men held under the controversial Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security
Act - introduced by Mr Blunkett in response to the September 11 2001 attacks
on New York and Washington - took their battle to the House of Lords after
the Court of Appeal backed Home Office's powers to detain them without limit
or charge.
A specially-convened committee of nine Law Lords - who ruled 8-1 in favour
of the detainees - had heard argument that detaining people indefinitely on
suspicion alone contravened democratic rights and international obligations.
Giving the ruling of the Law Lords in the Chamber of the House of Lords,
Lord Bingham said that the section of the anti-terrorism Act under which the
men were held was incompatible with the European Convention because it
"permits detention of suspected international terrorists in a way that
discriminates on the ground of nationality or immigration status".
He ordered the Government to pay the legal costs of the appellants.
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 weakness in the Government's case of opting out the
Convention right to a fair trial lay in the different treatment of nationals
and non-nationals.
"It is difficult to see how the extreme circumstances, which alone would
justify such detention, can exist when lesser protective steps apparently
suffice in the case of British citizens suspected of being international
terrorists."
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