Monday, October 17, 2005

Independent Online Edition > Legal : app1

Blairy England is not just a voice crying in the wilderness about the creation of a police state in Britain.
But inspite of the protests of judges it comes closer all the time.

It looks as if the local Blairy England boy is heading for leadership of her majesty's opposition.

Will he fight for our rights or go along with Blair?

The press has already christened him Tory Blair, after all.

I will have to write to him again.

By Marie Woolf, Raymond Whitaker and Severin Carrell
Published: 16 October 2005

"A powerful coalition of judges, senior lawyers and politicians has warned that the Government is undermining freedoms citizens have taken for granted for centuries and that Britain risks drifting towards a police state. One of the country's most eminent judges has said that undermining the independence of the courts has frightening parallels with Nazi Germany.

Senior legal figures are worried that 'inalienable rights' could swiftly disappear unless Tony Blair ceases attacking the judiciary and freedoms enshrined in the Human Rights Act.

Lord Ackner, a former law lord, said there was a contradiction between the Government's efforts to separate Parliament and the judiciary through the creation of a supreme court, and its instinct for directing judges how to behave. He cautioned against 'meddling' by politicians in the way the courts operate.

'I think it is terribly important there should not be this apparent battle between the executive and the judiciary. The judiciary has been put there by Parliament in order to ensure that the executive acts lawfully. If we take that away from the judiciary we are really apeing what happened in Nazi Germany,' he said.

Lord Ackner added that the Government's proposals to hold terrorist suspects for three months without charge were overblown. 'The police have made a case for extending the two weeks but to extend it to three months is excessive.'

Lord Lester QC, a leading human rights lawyer, expressed concern that the Government was flouting human rights law and meddling with the courts.

'If the Prime Minister and other members of the Government continue to threaten to undermine the Human Rights Act and interfere with judicial independence we shall have to secure our basic human rights and freedoms with a written constitution,' he said."

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