Bar freedom warning

Measures proposed by the US government to identify and prosecute terrorists threaten due process rights guaranteed by the constitution, American Bar Association President Robert Hirshon has warned.In a keynote speech to US mayors at the National League of Cities conference in Atlanta last week, Mr Hirshon said: 'Even within [today's] new and frightening landscape, the familiar landmarks of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights can - indeed, must - guide us.

And so, I am deeply concerned that some in my country do not share my confidence in America's ability to be both safe and free.'Mr Hirshon called on the administration to consider revising the order creating military tribunals which would try suspected terrorists.

He argued that its language does not allow for public proceedings or habeas review, while providing lower burdens of proof and the need for a two-thirds, rather than unanimous, majority verdict for death sentences.'[A] free and open judicial system is what our country is all about.

The Taliban established Star Chambers; they held secret trials followed by public executions.

This is not what America stands for.'Mr Hirshon reiterated criticism of a recent rule allowing monitoring of lawyer-client conversations in prison (see [2001] Gazette, 15 November, 6).

'There appears to be a willingness to suspend the due process rights our founders guaranteed.'Mr Hirshon noted that the federal courts successfully tried the 1993 World Trade Center terrorists and those who bombed the US embassies in Kenyan and Tanzanian.Neil Rose