Acting out for human rights

John Wadham looks at the Anti-terrorism Act and asks whether Parliament will allow the sun to set on areas of the statute that breach human rights.

The Anti-terrorism Act, despite the amendments forced on the government, remains a fundamental attack on our rights and freedoms.

It is not surprising that the Bill was criticised in the House of Lords, particularly given that large chunks of it have nothing to do with terrorism.The setting up of 'sunset clauses' so that the legislation will need to be reviewed or re-enacted may appear significant at first glance.

However, they are only helpful if the government is prepared to consider the evidence of the reviews and Parliament is willing to go beyond tinkering at the edges of these measures and instead to vote against key sections of the Act when it is reviewed.

Internment is wrong in principle today.

It will not be less wrong when it is reviewed next year.So, despite concessions and amendments, the structure for immediate implementation of indefinite detention was virtually untouched.

This power is so obviously contrary to fundamental human rights that the UK had to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

While minor changes have been made so that the home secretary cannot detain someone merely because of his own subjective suspicion, the power to intern will be available not on the basis of what a person has done but what some intelligence expert thinks that person might do.The authorities will still be heavily dependent upon the intelligence of foreign governments as a basis for this suspicion.

There will be an appeal, but the person and his lawyer will not be entitled to see all the evidence and the appeal panel will have to exclude them when it hears that material.

The case will not have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

The presumption of innocence will not apply.

The usual quality checks on the evidence will still be missing.The government's proposed sop to the Muslim community was to extend the criminal law to make it an offence to incite religious hatred.

Largely because of discrimination that continues to exist in the police and criminal justice system, it was as likely that Muslims would be prosecuted as those who vilify them.

We need stronger anti-discrimination laws that will prevent anyone from being sacked or harassed on the grounds of religion alone.

Introducing more criminal offences is not the answer.It must be welcomed that the Lords removed this from the Bill and the home secretary eventually conceded.Too many of the other measures smuggled into this Act either have nothing to do with terrorism and the events of 11 September or are more wide-ranging in their remit.The Act includes the power to take fingerprints merely to establish identity; for the police to take identity photographs by force; to allow personal and private information to be obtained by the police from other government files with almost no controls, checks or safeguards; to keep the fingerprints of all asylum seekers, even those given refugee status; to store communications data, resulting in millions of innocent users of communications systems having their private communications information retained on the off-chance that it might be of use in the future; to allow EU law on home affairs matters to be implemented by way of secondary legislation, usurping the key role of Parliament in protecting the rights of citizens; and it will create a criminal offence for those who do not provide terrorism information to the police.We already have one of the most comprehensive anti-terrorism regimes in the west, and one that has been criticised by many for being too Draconian.

Half the measures in this Act have little or nothing to do with terrorism and some of those that do, such as the power to intern, are wrong in principle.

The Act needed radical surgery to protect our freedoms but, unfortunately, those freedoms were at the mercy of the government's massive majority in the House of Commons.John Wadham is a solicitor and director of the human rights and civil liberties organisation Liberty