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Concerning issues such as the identity card and associated national id database, and the extension of the pre-charge detention period, my natural inclination had always been to trust the government of the day. Thus, I was willing to accept a curtailment of civil liberties in order to meet the need for the government's ability to provide increased security to Great Britain.
In time, my position on these issues has changed, and especially so with regard to the issue of the extension of the pre-charge detention period. For the record, I'm inclined to agree with the proposal set out by Alex Carlile — the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation — who has suggested (see penultimate paragraph) the following:
[T]he maximum period [for pre-charge detention should] be set by parliament. This is likely to be no longer than 56 days, but it is the rules that are important [and] not the arbitrary number of days. The new system should involve greater day-to-day supervision by judges to ensure that nobody is detained for a day longer than necessary in the interests of justice, nor a day shorter.
That is, there is a longer pre-charge detention period made available in principle, but this is only exploited in practice by a much more "hands-on" approach from judges involved in the case on a day-to-day basis. That seems pretty sensible to me.
Though my opinion regarding the pre-charge detention period has changed, I can state categorically that this has nothing to do with any of the work of Liberty, the civil liberties and human rights organisation. Recently, Liberty published a report comparing pre-charge detention periods in several different countries, and found that the UK's current 28-day period already far exceeds that found in other countries (such as the US, Spain, Russia and France). I was extremely sceptical about this report at the time, and Alex Carlile's excellent article has provided the reason for that scepticism.
Carlile rightly highlights that Liberty's publication does not present an accurate or balanced description of the law in many of the different countries it considers. For example, though Liberty suggests Italy has a 4-day pre-charge detention period, the recent murder of Meredith Kercher has shown that the suspects could spend up to a year in prison before being charged. Similarly, Liberty's report says that, in France, a terrorism suspect can be held for only six days without charge. But, as Carlile highlights:
what actually happens in France includes the detention of suspects for at least three days without the right to have a lawyer present; interviews during that period without tape recording (a French investigating magistrate described tape recording to me as “technically problematic”); and detention for periods often up to a year without any trial taking place, followed by release... The French do charge suspects after a maximum of six days’ detention. They charge them with the offence of association de malfaiteur (criminal association), an offence risibly vague, which is then replaced in cases that reach trial by far more serious accusations.
Perhaps most ridiculously of all, Liberty approvingly cites the pre-charge detention period in the US as being 48 hours. Yet Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition, as well as the Patriot Acts, "offer no template", in Carlile's words, "of civil liberties where terrorism is concerned".
Thus, if Liberty is the best we have for making the case against pre-charge detention periods, we're in trouble. As Carlile accurately concludes, what we need is informed debate and not the sort of "campaigning zeal" that has characterised Liberty's unhelpful contribution to the debate so far.