Home -> Law Blog Directory -> International Law Blogs -> prisonlawinsideout

International Law

: prisonlawinsideout

42 Days: No to the Politics of Fear

By John Hirst

42 Days: No to the Politics of Fear

Gordon Brown is confusing security and job security

"The House of Commons votes today on a proposal that should outrage all its members bar one. The plan to allow police to hold terror suspects for six weeks without charge should offend those who value their civil liberties because it panders to the politics of fear, because it imperils individual freedom and because it is unnecessary. But it should also offend those who truly believe that the police need greater powers to combat terrorism. It will not create those powers. On the contrary, the ?safeguards? introduced in haste to head off a potential Commons mutiny have rendered this measure unworkable in practice and inimical to justice.

The only MP, therefore, who stands to gain from a ?yes? vote is the member for Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Gordon Brown. This proposal long ago stopped being an attempt to facilitate the prosecution of terrorists. It is about securing the position of the Prime Minister".

Liberty head Shami Chakrabarti says 42-day detention case is ?sexed up?

"The power to invoke the 42-day limit for detaining terror suspects could be triggered by events well short of a genuine emergency, opponents insisted last night".

Legal Opinion: Forty-two days exposes Brown's cold expediency

"Gordon Brown is determined to force the issue on 42 days even though he risks a bloody nose in a House of Commons vote later today. While just about every lawyer in Britain can find nothing to say in support of such an arbitrary detention period, the Prime Minister believes there is a great political prize at stake".

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on June 11, 2008 (boomark / email).