The move is in response to a decision by the European Court of Human Rights,  which found that the use of stop and search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000  amounted to a  violation of the right to a private life. The court said the powers were drawn too broadly at the time of their initial authorisation and did not have enough safeguards to protect civil liberties. The Home Secretary told the House of Commons: “I will not allow the continued use of section 44 in contravention of the European Court’s ruling and, more importantly, in contravention of the civil liberties of every one of us.” She added that the new government had been concerned about the use of section 44 powers for some time. The changes are designed to comply with the Strasbourg ruling and provide clarity for the police before a review of all counterterrorism legislation this summer. The terms of reference for the review are expected to be announced next week.

The Home Secretary has sought urgent legal advice and consulted police forces, and interim guidance for the police has been introduced which sets a new suspicion threshold. Officers will no longer be able to search individuals using section 44 powers. Instead they will have to rely on section 43 powers, which require officers to reasonably suspect the person to be a terrorist. Police may search only vehicles under section 44 of the law, and then only if they have reasonable suspicion of terrorist activity. The changes will bring the operation of counter-terrorism use of stop and search powers fully into line with the European Court’s judgment. Theresa May concluded: “The first duty of government is to protect the public. But that duty must never be used as a reason to ride roughshod over our civil liberties. I believe that the interim proposals I have set out today give the police the support they need and protect those ancient rights.”

In reply, Alan Johnson, the former Labour Home Secretary, said he was ‘amazed’ that his successor had not tried to appeal against the Strasbourg ruling. He went on to say: “I am deeply concerned about the Home Secretary’s intention to restrict section 44 powers to searches of vehicles. That quite clearly restricts the powers of the police.” But Lord Carlile, the government’s independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, speaking on BBC’s ‘World at One’ yesterday, said section 44 had been ineffective in combating terrorism, had caused community tensions and was used arbitrarily and for incorrect purposes. He added: “You don’t have to search people to discourage terrorists, the evident availability of police officers in the area, obvious uniformed policing, is just as much of a deterrent.” And Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: “Liberty welcomes the end of the infamous section 44 stop and search power that criminalised and alienated more people than it ever protected. We argued against it for ten years and spent the last seven challenging it all the way to the Court of Human Rights. It is a blanket and secretive power that has been used against school kids, journalists, peace protesters and a disproportionate number of young black men. To our knowledge, it has never helped catch a single terrorist. This is a very important day for personal privacy, rights to protest and race equality in Britain.”

Jack Straw’s catch-all bill has made these columns twice before (see “Civil Liberties” and “Partial defences to murder”). This point of attack is aimed at Chapter 1, clause 100 et seq, which, according to the COCJ, would mean that the discretion of the sentencing judge would be severely limited by “mandatory guidelines which the court must follow or apply in reaching the sentencing decision”. The Sentencing Guidelines Council and the Sentencing Advisory Panel are to be abolished, to be replaced by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, a body of 14 appointed jointly by the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice. This Council must prepare sentencing guidelines which every court must follow in sentencing an offender. The bill has passed through the Commons but has yet to go through the Lords.

In a hard hitting statement issued last week, the COCJ said that “We do not believe that the introduction of mandatory Guidelines will facilitate the just and proper sentencing of offenders. We consider that the imposition of mandatory Guidelines may result in injustice to both offenders and victims in individual cases”. The judges accuse the Government of departing from recommendations made by a working group set up under Lord Justice Gage in 2007 to consider a mandatory sentencing framework. Its report called the idea “unsuitable and unacceptable in England and Wales”. Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has sought to defuse the issue, insisting that he was not introducing mandatory sentencing guidelines. He said that he had moved a series of amendments to underpin judicial discretion. The bill was intended to ensure greater consistency in sentencing, which would be in the interests of justice and, primarily, of the public.

The COCJ is unimpressed “even taking account of the government amendments”. It concludes damningly “We do not consider these sentencing proposals to have any benefit. The proposals are not sought by the judiciary or any other criminal justice group”. The full text of the COCJ statement can be found at

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about_judiciary/governance_judiciary/cocj/statements.htm

Given that the number of days a suspect spends in detention before trial is a not a scientific exercise but an uneasy compromise, how can it be that 42 has achieved the status of a threat to the leadership of the government? While there has been much agonising , soul searching and almost daily concessions to get the provisions through Parliament, the actual number itself seems to be sacrosanct. All this for a proposed law which may be needed one day in the future, may never be used at all, and would affect very few people.

The police have apparently provided examples of circumstances which would justify the 42 days, but even they have not claimed that any terrorist has escaped justice because 28 days was not enough. The Security Services don’t want it, former senior Law Officers have spoken against it – even those who supported the Government in the previous 90 day vote – and almost all others in the know (but not on the Government payroll) agree that there is no evidence backing 42 days. The current level of 28 days is more than other members of the European Union consider necessary, despite being equal targets for terrorism. Their criticism of the British proposals has been robust and concerted.

Writing in the ‘Guardian’, Marcel Berlins says 42 is symbolic. “It represents all the government’s excessive anti-terrorist legislation; detention without charge or trial; the steady erosion of the rule of law; and the nibbling away of civil liberties. The resistance of the Labour rebels is not based on a calculation of how many weeks is appropriate. It is a statement encompassing the whole of Labour’s anti-terrorist policy. Enough is enough.”

Come back Douglas Adams. Your country needs you.