No case for extension of 28-day limit

Plans to detain terrorist suspects without charge for more than 28 days should be dropped, a committee of MPs and peers from all parties says.
In a report published this week, Counter-terrorism Policy and Human Rights: 28 days, Intercept and Post-charge Questioning, the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights challenges the case for extension as “unnecessary”.
A “power with such a significant impact on liberty” as the proposed extension requires “clear evidence” that it is justified. However, police evidence showed the extension could only be supported by “precautionary arguments that such a need may arise at some time in the future”, the report states.
The committee recommends that Parliament, not the courts, should decide the upper limit.

Andrew Dismore MP, chairman of the committee, says: “To be removed from your home, your family, your job for 28 days, never mind longer, has a serious impact on your life. We have to be absolutely sure of the need for this. As far as we’ve heard there’s not yet been a case where 28 days was inadequate. This is being proposed on the possibility that it might be in future.”

Eric Metcalfe, director of human rights policy at JUSTICE, says: “At 28 days, the UK already has the longest period of pre-charge detention of any western country. No amount of additional scrutiny by the courts and Parliament can hope to prevent the injustice of an innocent person detained without charge for over a month.”

The committee wants to see improved conditions for the detention of pre-charge suspects and singles out Paddington Green police station as “plainly inadequate”. It says that information classified as “closed material” was often freely available on the internet, but that a lack of Arabic knowledge prevented special advocates from finding this out. However, the committee favours some recent policies, including the government’s review of the use of intercept evidence.