On Wednesday the Joint Committee on Human Rights published its Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights (Tenth Report): Counter-Terrorism Bill.

The Committee seems annoyed that the Government continues to fail to make a case for extending the period of pre-charge detention, that the Government failed to substantively respond to an earlier JHCR report on the issue, and that the Government has dismissed “an alternative, human-rights compliant package” and other recommendations.

Worth quoting verbatim one particular section:

In our view, while it would clearly be possible for there to be a parliamentary debate of some kind on the Home Secretary’s statement to Parliament about having made the 42 day limit available, it would not be possible for that debate to go into the details of the justification for extending the time limit for the purposes of the particular, ongoing investigation. The nature of that decision requires justification by reference to the particular circumstances of the investigation of the individual suspects.

The Home Secretary would tell Parliament that she has been advised by the police and the CPS that more time is required in order to investigate the individual suspects who are already being detained. In order for Parliament meaningfully to debate the correctness of that assertion, it will be necessary to refer to the detailed factual circumstances of the individual suspects, but such reference will be impossible because, as the DPP made clear in his evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, it might prejudice subsequent prosecutions.

In our view, the fundamental flaw in the Government’s proposal therefore remains: it confuses parliamentary and judicial functions by attempting to give to Parliament what is unavoidably a judicial function, namely the decision about whether it is justifiable to detain individual suspects for longer.

…

In our view, however, even if the Bill were amended in this way, it would not meet the objection above that any parliamentary debate will be so circumscribed by the need to avoid prejudicing fair trials as to be a virtually meaningless safeguard against wrongful exercise of the power.

The Government also got its own case wrong:

First, the Government asserts that “no challenge has ever been made” on grounds of incompatibility with Article 5 where suspects have been held under the existing maximum period of 28 days “and if there was even an arguable case you would expect there to have been such a challenge.”

In other words, the Government is inviting Parliament to infer from the fact that there have not been any Article 5 challenges under the existing law that there is not even an arguable case that the regime of extended pre-charge detention is in breach of Article 5. In fact, there has been such a challenge, by one of the first people to have their pre-charge detention extended beyond 14 days, a suspect [Nabeel Hussain] arrested in connection with the alleged Heathrow bomb plot in August 2006.

[hat-tip NO2ID forum]

Meg Hillier in Reading:

“It’s also incredibly convenient for people. Instead of carrying all that raft of documents that people have to have – you know – that proof of your address and your ID, you can have one card or your passport and either of those documents will do to prove your identity.”

Yes, I am desperate to save myself from carrying two bits of paper once a year to a bank.

The Guardian (also the Times):

The Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, today [Friday 16 May] lost a high court battle to prevent the disclosure of the details of second-home expenses claimed by 14 prominent MPs.

Today’s ruling, given by Sir Igor Judge, the president of the Queen’s bench division, Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Blake, will increase pressure on Martin, who has been criticised for his decision to block the publication of the information.

The Commons authorities challenged the Information Tribunal’s demand that a detailed breakdown of MPs’ additional costs allowances (ACAs) had to be provided under the Freedom of Information Act.

The allowances cover the expenditure incurred when an MP is away from home on parliamentary duties, including the cost of running second homes and general household bills.

The judgement is on Bailii.

Some highlights:

The carefully structured decision of the Tribunal covers 28 pages of closely reasoned judgment. It provides a careful analysis of the relevant facts, with appropriate findings where the facts were in dispute or potentially controversial. … Seen in relation to the public interest that public money should be, and be seen to be properly spent, the Tribunal found that the ACA [additional costs allowance] system was deeply unsatisfactory, and its shortcomings both in terms of transparency and accountability were acute.

…

We have no doubt that the public interest is at stake. We are not here dealing with idle gossip, or public curiosity about what in truth are trivialities. The expenditure of public money through the payment of MPs’ salaries and allowances is a matter of direct and reasonable interest to taxpayers. They are obliged to pay their taxes at whatever level and on whatever basis the legislature may decide, in part at least to fund the legislative process. Their interest is reinforced by the absence of a coherent system for the exercise of control over and the lack of a clear understanding of the arrangements which govern the payment of ACA. Although the relevant rules are made by the House itself, questions whether the payments have in fact been made within the rules, and even when made within them, whether the rules are appropriate in contemporary society, have a wide resonance throughout the body politic. In the end they bear on public confidence in the operation of our democratic system at its very pinnacle, the House of Commons itself. The nature of the legitimate public interest engaged by these applications is obvious.

…

The principal ground of appeal asserts that the Tribunal misdirected itself by failing to recognise the existence of and therefore give appropriate weight to the reasonable expectations of MPs about precisely how information about the ACA claims would be made available to the public.

…

In our judgment the submission that the Tribunal failed to address the arguments advanced to it in the context of the reasonable expectation of MPs is unrealistic. The judgment speaks for itself. The Tribunal expressly recorded the argument, and expressly rejected it. It did so by reference to the facts, including the publication scheme itself and the relevant letters. We can find no misdirection or other error of law which would justify interfering with the decision of the Tribunal.

…

[in relation to disclosure of addresses] None of this is intended to suggest that the disclosure of an individual’s private address under FOIA does not require justification. In the present case, however, there was a legitimate public interest well capable of providing such justification. Thus, for example, there is evidence which suggests that one MP claimed ACA for a property which did not exist, and yet further evidence may demonstrate that on occasions MPs claiming ACA were letting out the accommodation procured from the ACA allowance.

The Guardian:

The Labour campaign [for Crewe and Nantwich], under the command of the Birmingham MP Steve McCabe, has rebranded its chief adversary “Tory Boy Timpson”, and is going for him with an eye-popping ferocity. Volunteers have been stalking him dressed in top hat and tails; now, there comes a very nasty leaflet titled “Tory candidate application form”, replete with questions and ticked boxes. Number one is, “Do you live in a big mansion house?” Question two is - and, really, the sense of humour on display is quite something - “Do you think that regeneration is adding a new wing to your mansion?” The third reads: “Have you and your Tory mates on the council been soft on yobs and failed to make our streets safer?” But the best is saved for question four, at which point pantomimic class hatred is suspended and we get something altogether more sinister. “Do you,” it asks, “oppose making foreign nationals carry an ID card?”

Though the Tories seem to be hardly mentioning it, the presence of immigration in the campaign isn’t a surprise. What’s unsettling is the language used by Labour, and the implication of a tough measure to be wrought on uncooperative outsiders.

And of course the implication that all Johnny Foreigners will be issued with ID cards, when we should all know by now that it will be just non-EEA nationals.

The BBC:

West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have apologised for accusing the makers of a Channel 4 documentary of distortion.

The apology and the promise of £100,000 were made at the High Court on Thursday.

It follows comments made about a Dispatches programme, Undercover Mosque, which tackled claims of Islamic extremism in the West Midlands.

The police statement said the force was wrong to make the allegations.

A press release issued by the police and the CPS in August 2007 claimed the Dispatches programme, broadcast in January of that year, misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics with misleading editing.

One preacher was shown saying a homosexual should be thrown off a mountain, another that women were born deficient.

Police also reported Channel 4 to television watchdog Ofcom for “heavily editing” the words of Islamic imams.

But in November, Ofcom rejected the police and CPS claims, and Channel 4 said it was going to sue the CPS and police for libel.  …

The Times:

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Police scrutiny of editorial decisions of a television producer is not only an inappropriate law enforcement function, it also risks deterring legitimate investigative journalism.”

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats’ media spokesman, said: “What the police thought they were doing in the first place is beyond me.”

Quite.

The Telegraph:

Police and prosecutors have paid out a six-figure sum for wrongly claiming a television exposé of Islamist extremists was faked.

Er no, let’s be clear - the individuals haven’t paid a dime.  Ultimately this money has come from the public purse.  I wonder if anyone will be held accountable.

The BBC:

A High Court decision on whether MPs expenses should be fully disclosed has been deferred to a later date.

It follows a full day of legal argument at the Royal Courts of Justice.

The House of Commons is fighting to avoid releasing the details of the expenses of 14 MPs and former MPs under the Freedom of Information Act.

They argue the publication of the MPs’ second home addresses in a receipt-by-receipt breakdown of expenses would compromise security.

If I recall correctly, MPs already have to publish their home addresses when they stand as a candidate at election time.

…

Partial details were released earlier this month, revealing spending under broad categories such as mortgage interest payments and groceries.

But Ms Brooke continues to press for the publication of a full receipt-by-receipt breakdown.

The Commons authorities argued in court earlier that MPs had a reasonable expectation that there would not be full disclosure of expenses - only their total expenses.

Well that seems an unreasonable expectation to me.  We the people want to know how our money is spent.

Don’t spend our money on private things. Simple.

They also argued that addresses should not be made public for security reasons and that this should apply not simply when there are specific security concerns for specific MPs but to all MPs

It may be the case that future security considerations would apply and if addresses had already been published these couldn’t be “airbrushed,” counsel for the Commons argued.

If they’ve already been published what is the problem?!

The Telegraph:

A convicted drugs criminal has escaped an order to have up to £4.5 million of his assets confiscated because no legal aid barrister would take on the case. …

The Crown Prosecution Service estimated that his criminal lifestyle had netted him £4.5 million, but were seeking to confiscate £1.5 million in the first instance.

In short his assets were frozen so he was unable to hire a barrister using his personal wealth.  But no qualified barrister would take on the case because legal aid (to which the defendant is now entitled) doesn’t pay enough.

The judge suggested that a less qualified barrister could take the case on but Mr Versfeld pointed out that it was contrary to the Bar’s code of conduct for a barrister to accept instructions on a case that he or she was not experienced in.

Therefore the defendant won his appeal to set aside the confiscation order for £1.5m.

The case has highlighted the inadequacy of funding regulations, introduced in October 2005, which introduced a fixed scale of fees.

It also exposed the “draconian” provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 under which offenders convicted of a drugs-related offence faced having assets seized that could in theory be counted as gained from a “criminal lifestyle”.

“So although this defendant was convicted of offences only involving a few hundred pounds’ worth of cannabis, he found himself at risk of losing £4.5 million worth of assets – with the burden on him to prove that they were not ill-gotten gains. On top of that, he was prohibited from using those assets for his own defence,” Mr Versfeld said.

The Guardian:

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

…

Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. “CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure,” Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. “Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.”

More training was needed for officers, he said. Often they do not want to find CCTV images “because it’s hard work”. Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.

Pope “Catholic”:

[Cheshire deputy chief constable Graham Gerrard] said that there were discussions with biometric companies “on a regular basis” about developing the technology to search digitised databases and match suspects’ images with known offenders. “Sometimes when they put their [equipment] in operational practice, it’s not as wonderful as they said it would be, ” he said. “I suspect [Find] has been put on hold until the technology matures. Before you can digitise every offender’s image you have to make sure the lighting is right and it’s a good picture. It’s a major project. We are still some way from a national database. There are still ethical and technical issues to consider.”

The BBC:

There is likely to be tough competition for junior doctor posts this year after a bid to give UK-trained medics priority in applying for jobs failed.

Ministers in England wanted overseas doctors to be appointed only if suitable UK medics were not available.

It would have meant that the thousands of overseas doctors who came to work in the NHS in recent years to plug gaps in the service would have been penalised.

But the restrictions were ruled unlawful by the House of Lords. …

The Register:

The Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has lost an appeal to keep secret its meetings with business lobbying group the Confederation of British Industry.

The case has dragged on for three years and originally concerned secret meetings between the CBI and BERR, which was formerly known as the Department of Trade and Industry. …