Pre-charge detention extension attacked

Measures in the Counter-Terrorism Bill to further extend pre-charge detention in terrorism cases lack safeguards, human rights groups claim.

The Bill would allow the home secretary to extend pre-charge detention for up to 42 days in terrorism cases, subject to a prior recommendation by the director of public prosecutions. However, Eric Metcalfe, JUSTICE’s director of human rights policy, says that although the Bill contains provision for subsequent debate by Parliament, there is nothing to prevent the home secretary extending the maximum period of detention to 42 days without prior Parliamentary or judicial approval.

Metcalfe says: “Scrutiny is no safeguard when there’s no evidence to scrutinise. Nor can scrutiny prevent the injustice of being held without evidence for 42 days. Phoney safeguards and a lack of evidence are no way to fight terrorism.”

Liberty has called for alternatives to the extension of precharge detention, such as the use of post-charge questioning and allowing phone-tap evidence to be used in criminal prosecutions. Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti says: “The government is right to abandon the divisive rhetoric of the ‘War on Terror’, but it must now abandon the counterproductive policies that went with it. Despite ministerial promises of exceptional circumstances and so-called safeguards, the reality of this Bill is an on-off button for six weeks’ detention without charge.”