The use of control orders are under review as three terror suspects abscond and are expected to have gone abroad.
Control orders were brought in after the policy of detention without charge or trial was ruled illegal and are used when people are considered a threat to national security.
Tony Blair has insisted that control orders were being used only because tougher laws, the detention without charge, had been overturned by the courts.
To confuse matters even further, Home Secretary John Reid, today made a commons statement that the three were not considered to represent a threat to the public.
Maybe i am missing a something here but if they were not a threat to us, why where they under the control order in the first place?
If someone is considered enough of a threat to have to be locked up indefinitely to protect us, then surely the powers that be must have some evidence to these ends and then they should be bought up in front of a judge for sentencing.
In my world, if you have no evidence then that person is innocent, if you have evidence then you charge them.
7 comments:
That's the ideal that America's justice system is supposed to run on, as well, which is why so many people have a problem with Gitmo. If you suggest that someone in there might be innocent, though, you're generally accused of siding with the terrorists. How do we know they're all terrorists? Because the government tells us they are. They might lie about WMDs, affiliations with Al Queda, lobbying, Justice Department policies, outing of our own spies, torture, and heroic actions by women in uniform, but what makes anyone think they'd lie about DETAINEES?
"In my world, if you have no evidence then that person is innocent, if you have evidence then you charge them."
No, that person is PRESUMED innocent. They are not necessarily innocent if you have no evidence.
There exist legal mechanisms to hold people for a period of time if it is thought they are guilty and more evidence is required before charges are brought.
I won't pretend to be able to argue the finer points of British or American law with regard to terrorist suspects but I will say that not being versed in them it is not really accurate to insinuate that the issue is black and white, as Lucy does, now is it?
I think more information is needed on the issue of control orders than is given here to do so.
I would imagine that as in the US and Canada, in Britain, detainees have a right to know the charges against them within a brief period of time, and if there are no charges, they should be released. Call them innocent or call them presumed innocent, whatever your pleasure is, if you don't have enough to charge them, you have to release them.
Agreed, Stephen. The point I was trying to make is that I don't know what that period of time is with regard to the issue at hand, and neither does anyone else.
Clarification, Lucy?
As it stands it is 28 days but the Government are pushing for 90 days.
Previously the Government held people it were suspicious about in Belmarsh Prison indefinitly until the courts ruled it illegal.
My point was that the powers that be deemed these 3 men dangerous enough that they had to be hauled in and held.
When they escaped, they are suddenly no threat which begs the question, why were they under the control order.
My comment got eaten.
The fact that they are no longer a threat doesn't mean there was no grounds to hold them in the first place. If they have indeed skipped the country, it's pretty clear to me that they are no longer a threat to GB and that is what the government is saying.
were no grounds...
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