End of the day for control orders?

The future use of control orders to detain terror suspects has been put into doubt following the release of a terror suspect this week.

AF, who holds dual British and Libyan citizenship, had been suspected of terror offences and had been subject to a control order for the past three years. In June, the House of Lords allowed an appeal in Secretary of State for the Home Department v AF and another [2009] UKHL 28, finding that the appellant’s right to a fair hearing under the European Convention of Human Rights had been violated. The law lords had been prompted by a European Court of Human Rights’ decision on the release of secret information to those suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Under the control order, made pursuant to the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, s 2, the government sought non-disclosure of intelligence on which his house arrest had been based. That decision was due to result in a hearing in which the home secretary, Alan Johnson, would have been forced to disclose the information used to justify his detention. Faced with a choice of whether to reveal the intelligence sources, thus potentially jeopardising other terror investigations, or abandoning the order, Johnson, decided that AF’s control order be lifted.

Solicitor for AF, Carl Richmond, says, “In the more than three years since the control order was imposed, the essence of the case against him has remained entirely undisclosed, it has merely been said that there is a reasonable suspicion that he has engaged in some form of terrorism-related activity”.

Richmond says he will now seek to have the order formally quashed in the High Court in November.

A Home Office spokesman said that the government’s decision did not mean that the control order regime was doomed.

“Where the disclosure required by the court cannot be made for the protection of the public interest, we may be forced to revoke the control order, even though the government considers the control order to be necessary to protect the public from a risk of terrorism,” he said. “In such circumstances, we will take the steps necessary to protect the public.”