Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Nick Clegg gatecrashes Theresa May's party
Nick Clegg started a fresh coalition row yesterday when he told the home secretary, Theresa May, that she will face a parliamentary defeat on the government’s counter-terrorism bill unless judges are given oversight of plans to impose temporary exclusion orders on some terrorist suspects returning to Britain.
The Guardian says that the Liberal Democrats leader is calling on the home secretary to introduce government amendments in the upper house to meet the concerns of David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, about the lack of judicial checks on temporary exclusion orders:
Anderson said the orders, which can last for up to two years, needed to be subject to judicial oversight because the home secretary could no have the final word. “If you are going to restrict people’s liberties in this way – much as we all trust home secretaries you simply cannot give them the final word,” he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
“The people we are talking about are our citizens, like it or not. That gives us some responsibility, I would say a primary responsibility, for dealing with them. Turkey or France can always deport the person back to the UK and there is no possibility of objecting to that. Nothing in this bill alters that.
“But there certainly are difficulties. If somebody does choose to stay over there what are they supposed to do? … With some countries you would have to look out – is the person at risk of being tortured? What are the guarantees against that sort of thing happening?”
Judicial oversight of course is absolutely crucial and once more it falls to the Liberal Democrats to moderate the demands of anti-libertarian Tories.
The Guardian says that the Liberal Democrats leader is calling on the home secretary to introduce government amendments in the upper house to meet the concerns of David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, about the lack of judicial checks on temporary exclusion orders:
Anderson said the orders, which can last for up to two years, needed to be subject to judicial oversight because the home secretary could no have the final word. “If you are going to restrict people’s liberties in this way – much as we all trust home secretaries you simply cannot give them the final word,” he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
“The people we are talking about are our citizens, like it or not. That gives us some responsibility, I would say a primary responsibility, for dealing with them. Turkey or France can always deport the person back to the UK and there is no possibility of objecting to that. Nothing in this bill alters that.
“But there certainly are difficulties. If somebody does choose to stay over there what are they supposed to do? … With some countries you would have to look out – is the person at risk of being tortured? What are the guarantees against that sort of thing happening?”
Judicial oversight of course is absolutely crucial and once more it falls to the Liberal Democrats to moderate the demands of anti-libertarian Tories.
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“If you are going to restrict people’s liberties in this way – much as we all trust home secretaries you simply cannot give them the final word,”
I'm struggling to justify the statement 'we all trust home secretaries' - no I wouldn't dream of doing so!!!! Including the one currently in post!
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I'm struggling to justify the statement 'we all trust home secretaries' - no I wouldn't dream of doing so!!!! Including the one currently in post!
# posted by 
: 9:44 AM
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