Disarray over terror control orders after law lords ruling

Frances Gibb, Legal Editor
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Three men have won a unanimous ruling from Britain’s highest court that strikes a massive blow to the “control orders” regime for detaining terror suspects.
A rare panel of nine law lords allowed an appeal by three terror suspects on the grounds that they did not know what they were accused of and secret evidence was used against them.
The strongly-worded ruling, hailed as “historic” by human rights groups, means that many of the 17 terror suspects now held under the controversial orders will have to have their cases re-examined.
One of the law lords, Lord Hope of Craighead, said: “If the rule of law is to mean anything, it is in cases such as these that the court must stand by principle. It must insist that the person affected be told what is alleged against him.”
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Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, said he was “disappointed” but made clear that the Government would contest each case vigorously.
He said: “This is an extremely disappointing judgment. Protecting the public is my top priority and this judgment makes that task harder. Nevertheless, the Government will continue to take all steps we can to manage the threat presented by terrorism.”
He said that all control orders would remain in force for the time being, adding: “We will continue to seek to uphold them in the courts. In the meantime we will consider this judgment and our options carefully.
“We introduced control orders to limit the risk posed by suspected terrorists whom we can neither prosecute nor deport. The Government relies on sensitive intelligence material to support the imposition of a control order, which the courts have accepted would damage the public interest to disclose in open court.
“We take our obligations to human rights seriously and as such we have put strong measures in place to try to ensure that our reliance on sensitive material does not prejudice the right of individuals subject to control orders to a fair trial.”
The control order regime was introduced in March 2005 as a means of holding terror suspects who have not been charged or tried and where the evidence is largely sensitive and derived from intelligence sources.
Instead they are held under a home curfew with electronic tagging and bans on whom they can meet and where they can go.
It is the third set-back by ministers in their efforts to deal with terror suspects while preserving the confidentiality of evidence obtained from intercepts.
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The control orders regime was introduced under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 in response to the law lords’ landmark ruling that to hold foreign terror suspects without charge or trial in Belmarsh prison was a breach of their human rights and unlawful.
The men can challenge their control orders - but they are not allowed to see any of the secret intelligence assessments that form the basis of decision to restrict their liberty.
In October 2007 the law lords ruled that the most draconian restriction under the control order regime, an 18-hour curfew, was also a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Today, ruling in favour of the men, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the senior law lord, said: "A trial procedure can never be considered fair if a party to it is kept in ignorance of the case against him."