Lords sides with Muslims over MPs

The Government has suffered yet another defeat in the House of Lords after peers voted in support of establishing a new independent commissioner for terrorism suspects.

This is not the first time the Lords has opposed the Commons over anti-terrorist legislation, much of which has been highly contentious, with notable past defeats including Tony Blair's attempt to increase the maximum time a terrorist suspect can be held without charge from 28 days to 90 in 2005. In 2008, another attempt to extend it to 45 days was made, briefly accepted and then overturned by the Lords. Law Lords led by Lord Philips of Worth-Matravers have also recently attacked controversial control orders which can be used to prevent a suspect from seeing evidence being used against him or her, effectively denying them the right to make an appeal. The Common's opposition to the creation of the new post was backed by MPs from the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and some cross-party members.

A group of peers led by Lord Lloyd of Berwick (pictured right), a retired Law Lord, demanded that the new post be created and won the vote by 145 votes to 102. He said that the commissioner would act as the "the eyes and ears of the judge," entirely independently, in those cases where the police try to extend a suspect's detention prior to a charge being made.

In essence, the new commissioner will help to ensure that innocent people will not be detained for any longer than is necessary. Fears that it might lead to guilty people being freed are dismissed by former Chief Inspector of the Constabulary Lord Dear, who says he believes "that the greater good that may be achieved by the creation of the commissioner post far outweighs any potential disadvantage." The commissioner will be granted access to secret evidence, available to neither the suspect nor the suspect's lawyer, in order to be able to advise the judge on the best course of action.

Although Lord Lloyd points out that the creation of the post will reassure Britain's 2.4 million strong Muslim community, of which some members have been feeling (not without reason) distinctly alienised and even criminalised by various legislation and the extreme opinions of a small minority of the non-Muslim population, it will be of equal service to anyone of any other background who is unfortunate enough to be falsely suspected of plotting or carrying out terrorist offences.

The Guildford Four were wrongly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the 1970s. After many years in prison, their convictions were overturned. The people who carried out the bombings for which they were blamed remain free. Had the commissioner for terrorism supects have existed then, these innocent people might never have been convicted - and the police investigation would have continued, perhaps eventually capturing the real perpetrators before the trail went cold.

Had the commissioner have existed in the 1970s, the trial of the Guildford Four - wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a number of years after being sentenced to life for bombing attacks they did not carry out - may well have had a very different outcome. When an innocent person is convicted of a crime they did not commit, the investigation into that crime ends which allows the real perpetrator to remain free. The police are, unfortunately, not infallible and in some cases may be too keen to be seen to be achieving results which can lead to wrongful convictions - the new commissioner will decrease the likelihood of innocent people ending up in jail and increase the likelihood of guilty people facing prosecution.

House of Commons ministers have argued that one commissioner will be insufficient to cover the entire country and that the plan will cost far more than Lord Lloyd claims. How much is too much to ensure innocent people remain at liberty and terrorists, who seek to or may even successfully kill large numbers of men, women and children, are removed from society and given the long sentences they deserve?

Control orders deemed to prevent right to a fair trial by Law Lords

The Government - still shaking after last week's election results - has received another blow after Law Lords led by Lord Philips of Worth Matravers upheld a complaint made by three men who are subject to control orders who claim that they are being denied their right to a fair trial.

Control orders include a range of special measures designed to aid prosecution of terrorism suspects, including the prohibition of certain services such as the Internet or a telephone and can be used to restrict a person's movements to within a specified area. Introduced in 2005, there are two types; non-derogatory and derogratory, the latter having been deemed to infringe on the subject's right to liberty and as such have required the UK to opt out of article 5 of the European convention on human rights. The former have been applied in a total of 38 cases, of which 15 still apply. The second type have not yet been used. Most controversially, the orders mean that subjects are prevented from seeing secret evidence that will be used against them, making it extremely difficult for them to mount a legal challenge that is likely to have any degree of success - this can create a situation by which evidence gathered through phone tapping, otherwise deemed inadmissable in British courts, can be used.

Lord Phillips, senior Law Lord, believes the current control orders prevent a subject's right to a fair trial.

Lord Phillips has stated that, "A trial procedure can never be considered fair if a party to it is kept in ignorance of the case against him." Lord Hope of Craighead, also involved in the ruling, said that, "The consequences of a successful terrorist attack are likely to be so appalling that there is an understandable wish to support the system that keeps those who are considered to be most dangerous out of circulation for as long as possible."

Lord Hope added: "The consequences of a successful terrorist attack are likely to be so appalling that there is an understandable wish to support the system that keeps those who are considered to be most dangerous out of circulation for as long as possible." However, he claimed, "If the rule of law is to mean anything, it is in cases such as these that the court must stand by principle."

Meanwhile, Eric Metcalfe, speaking for the pro-human rights legal group Justice, says, "The government can decide to limp on with the use of secret evidence for the sake of ever-diminishing returns. Or Parliament can act to end its use once and for all. Either way, the unfairness of secret evidence is clear."

Lord Hope is right in saying that we need to do all we can to prevent terrorist atrocities, both here and abroad, and for that reason some form of control order remains necessary in our current society - nobody wants to see more attacks such as those which took place in London in 2005, in which many innocent civilians were murdered. However, any infringement of the democratic rights of any person prior to a guilty verdict is too serious in its implications to be considered, and so the current orders need to be closely investigated and reformed. Without the right to a fair trial - and the right to launch an appeal, for which it is necessary to be made fully aware of the evidence that may either convict or absolve the accused - our justice system is worthless.