Terrorism Act Incompatible with Human Rights, UK Court Rules in Miranda Case (Victory for Greenwald)
Last edited Tue Jan 19, 2016, 08:38 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: Guardian
Terrorism Act incompatible with human rights, court rules in David Miranda case
Appeal court says detention of Miranda was lawful but clause under which he was held is incompatible with European human rights convention
Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent
@owenbowcott
Tuesday 19 January 2016 06.41 EST
A key clause in the Terrorism Act 2000 is incompatible with the European convention on human rights, the master of the rolls, Lord Dyson, has declared as part of a court of appeal judgment.
His judgment came in the case of a man detained at Heathrow airport for carrying files related to information obtained by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Dyson’s decision will force government ministers to re-examine the act, which has now been found to be inconsistent with European law.
Dyson said that the powers contained in schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act (2000) were flawed. Schedule 7 of the Act allows travellers to be questioned in order to find out whether they appear to be terrorists. They have no right to remain silent or receive legal advice, and they may be detained for up to nine hours.
Terrorism Act incompatible with human rights, court rules in David Miranda case
“The stop power, if used in respect of journalistic information or material is incompatible with article 10 [freedom of expression] of the (European convention on human rights) because it is not ‘prescribed by law’,” the master of the rolls said.
Welcoming the decision, Kate Goold, the solicitor representing the detained man, David Miranda, said: “The notion of a journalist becoming an accidental terrorist has been wholeheartedly rejected.
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Miranda appeal court rules anti terrorism laws breach fundamental rights and have been misinterpreted by the police and Secretary of State
Bindmans Press Office
In a landmark ruling, the Court of Appeal today allowed David Miranda's appeal against the use of controversial police powers to stop, detain, question and search him at Heathrow Airport in August 2013. At the time he had been stopped Miranda was assisting the work of his partner, the award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was publishing articles about Edward Snowden's mass surveillance revelations.
Led by its most senior judge, Lord Dyson MR, the court found that the powers, contained in Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, are flawed. They breach fundamental rights, because they "do not afford effective protection" for the basic rights of journalists, and those working with them, that are protected in other areas of British law, including other anti terrorism legislation (paragraph 113). He added "if journalists and their sources can have no expectation of confidentiality, they may decide against providing information on sensitive matters of public interest." The court went on to hold that the breach would need to be remedied by Parliament by introducing judicial oversight when such powers are used at ports.
The decision is also important because for the first time the Court of Appeal rejected the very broad definition of 'terrorism' put forward by lawyers for the police and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State had argued that the 2000 Act definition of terrorism includes those involved in lawful political activity - such as journalists or protestors - if they accidentally and inadvertently do something that puts lives at risk. In overruling the Divisional Court, the Court of Appeal said that the Secretary of State was wrong and terrorism required some intention to cause a serious threat to public safety, such as endangering life. Dyson MR commented: "if Parliament had intended to provide that a person commits an act of terrorism where he unwittingly or accidentally does something which in fact endangers another person's life, I would have expected that, in view of the serious consequences of classifying a person as a terrorist, it would have spelt this out clearly" (paragraph 54).
Although it allowed David Miranda's appeal, the Court of Appeal did not accept his argument that the police had acted for a purpose that fell outside Schedule 7. It said that Schedule 7 powers were so unusually broad that they could be exercised for reasons that were in the mind of one of the officers in the command chain, even though that officer did not actually perform the stop, had no reasonable basis for those reasons, and had not communicated those reasons to any other officers who did carry out the stop. Given this, Dyson MR concluded "I would hold that the exercise of the Schedule 7 stop power in relation to Mr Miranda on 18 August 2013 was lawful" (para 119).
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/terrorism-act-incompatible-with-human-rights-court-rules-in-david-miranda-case
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