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UK Can Now Hold People Without Charge For 42 Days
the_leander writes "Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days. There is talk of compensation packages available for the falsely accused. The chances of you getting that money however are slim to none, lets not forget, this is the same country that charges prisoners who have been falsely accused for bed and boarding costs."
... where it's currently 6+ years and counting.
Oh wait, I forgot - they're not being held by the police, and they're not actually in America. My bad.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
We don't need terrorists anymore, we are doing their job for them. Thanks Gordon.
....as the Bill in question has only been passed by the House of Commons. It's got to go before the House of Lords yet. Many commentators think it is not going to do too well there.
However there are still 315 people who really should be held for 28 days without charge. Are there enough truely patriotic police to do this though.
Ah yes, our fine tradition of having decisions by the people we elect overturned by a bunch of unelected lords.
Nope, nothing wrong with our system at all. Those unelected lords are there precisely to stop bad (but popular) laws from being passed.
No fair - the ones sent to Australia were already charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced; and at least they were still in the Commonwealth & subject to British/colonial law & legal process.
Only barbarians would ship their alleged criminals to some overseas outpost then claim they had no recourse to the laws of the country...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
"Guantanamo bay"
or how about: "Abu Ghraib"
The US certainly has no moral high ground. They rape, torture, and sexually humiliate *suspected* terrorists, in a foreign land, out of sight of the people because they're so ashamed of what they do in the people's name.
If (I'm not, but *if*) I was a suspected terrorist, I'd take 42 days maximum in a standard UK jail, held under standard UK law by standard UK law-enforcement over indefinite detainment in a foreign military prison, with no legal status, and denied the right of habeus corpus. I'd prefer to be jailed in the UK rather than tortured and sexually abused by the US military.
Just saying. I continue to hope that the American people abhor and remove this stain on their countries honour, but it seems to be getting worse, not better.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
I prefer to think of it as our fine tradition of having legislation sanity checked by a bunch of people who aren't primarily motivated by re-election and "making their place in history".
The Tories opposed it because they need contentious issues to argue over, not because they wouldn't do it themselves.
Note that they also argue against the governments attempts to have private health bosses take over failing hospitals, even though it was the Tories who started the privatisation of publicly owned services in the first place.
Personally I don't think there's much difference between the Labour Party and the Conservatives any more. That's no big deal, in spite of what whichever one isn't in power says about the others failings, they end up doing almost exactly the same things.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
The Lords are only allowed to send Bills back to the Commons twice. They have no power other than to force debate and thought. It's not part of the "unwritten constitution", it's the Parliament Acts of 1911(Liberal) and 1949(Labour). The British constitution is mostly written, it's just written all over the place.
I would ask the grandparent how much he would like to be imprisoned for a month and ten days, only to be dumped back on the streets having no idea of why, no legal right to be told why and a scant chance of limited compensation. Can you imagine the effect on your family, your job, your reputation? This allows the state to destroy individuals with only limited checks and balances.
There isn't a day now where I don't thank god for the House of Lords injecting, unbelievably, some sanity into Parliament.
Those two things will take you about 20 minutes, and when you've done em you can come back here and rant along with me, with a new-found sense of entitlement and smug self-satisfaction at your personal involvement in the issue. Hey it works for me.
So, yeah, Labour MPs who voted for this disgraceful attack on fundamental rights we've had since Runnymede ought to be utterly ashamed of themselves; they've revealed that they are unprincipled bunch of spineless tossers, and I think there's a line about weasel's and god's clean air from Blackadder that springs to mind, too. Fuck Brown, and fuck this government, too. I've even crossed a personal rubicon whereby I now think a Tory govt would be preferable, something I never thought I'd say.
Christopher Harrison
Remember the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP Act)?
It was supposed to be used against terrorists and organised crime but is now finding use against minor criminals such as litter droppers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7369543.stm
In one memorable case, a council invoked it to spy on a family to see if they lived close enough to the school they wanted their child to attend.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm
I have no confidence that this new power to hold people without charge will be restricted to circumstances where it is absolutely required. The actual text of the act is remarkably vague on when and how it should be applied.
Problem is that won't stop it.
Remember the Fox Hunting Ban? The House of Lords blocked the ban, and Tony B.Liar pushed it through anyway on the crest of a popular mandate - it was an election promise, it was a class issue, the lords had only blocked it cos' they were all evil nasty fox hunters etc...
But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. We handed him a precedent to sweep aside the objections of the only body that could act as a brake on his ambitions. And paid the price years later when he took us into an illegal war - a price that is still being paid. What makes you think that Tony's understudy is going to hesitate for a moment to use the same power to force his own pet projects through?
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
69% of the UK population in favour of 42 days detention without charge - if you believe the results of a YouGov Poll (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2107480/42-day-terror-detention-British-public-overwhelmingly-in-favour-,-poll-shows.html)
Which brings us back to the point that one of the benefits of the House of Lords is that it's populated by people who don't listen to public opinion.
From what I've seen of their reactions to things in the past, common sense. And it's a damn good thing as well, since the commons seems to have lost most of theirs in the battle to get themselves reelected.