In the wake of the Medhurst arrest, Alexander Mercouris looks back at the genesis of the Terrorism Act under which the journalist was held.
At the time when Prime Minister Tony Blair brought in the Terrorism Act 2000 — note that this was before 9/11 – I was working in the Royal Courts of Justice. As I remember the lawyers were buzzing about it, worried about its vague and sloppy language, and its overt authoritarianism and capacity for abuse.
There was general incredulity that Blair, who is himself a lawyer, as of course is his wife, and his Home Secretary Jack Straw, who is also a lawyer and a former adviser of Barbara Castle, one of the most revered figures in modern Labour history, would bring in a law like that.
Looking back and thinking of those days, it’s amazing how naive we were.
Here we are and this terrible law is now being used against journalists, and is being used in a way which violates fundamental human rights.
The terrible thing is that it was at precisely this same time that the Blair government was bringing into law – with wide support from within the legal community — the Human Rights Act 1998, which embedded the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into U.K. law (the Human Rights Act 1998 was signed into law in 1998 but only came into force on Oct. 2, 2000).
At the time everyone in the legal world assumed that it was the Human Rights Act 1998 that was by far the more important Act, and which would be far more consequential than the Terrorism Act 2000.
Indeed I distinctly remember all sorts of assurances floating around that there was no need to worry because the Terrorism Act 2000 would be restricted and its loose wording interpreted by reference to the ECHR and the Human Rights Act 1998.
In reality what has happened is the opposite. Far from the Human Rights Act 1998 mitigating the effect of the Terrorism Act 2000, it is the Terrorism Act 2000 which is prevailing over the ECHR and the Human Rights Act 1998 – as the Medhurst case shows.
None of this would be happening were it not for a radical change in the whole legal and political culture in the U.K., which has taken place since these two Acts were brought into law. (more...)
LETTER FROM LONDON: On the UK Terrorism Act
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