The United Kingdom’s top law-and-order official said on Tuesday he believes controversial proposals for a new anti-terrorism law will win the approval of Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.
British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he believes a planned change to the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, which will allow Britain to place suspects under house arrest without the need for a trial, will satisfy critics in the Lords.
The Bill cleared an important hurdle late on Monday in the House of Commons, the lower chamber. After a lengthy and, at times, fiery debate, lawmakers voted by 272 to 219 to back the legislation.
To secure the approval of the Commons, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government yielded a point to critics of the anti-terrorism law being rushed through Parliament, agreeing that a judge rather than a politician should issue orders to confine people suspected but not convicted of terrorist offences.
Clarke said on Tuesday he believes the change should be enough to satisfy the Lords without destroying the new law’s effectiveness.
Blair’s governing Labour Party has a big majority in the Commons but doesn’t have a majority in the Lords.
”I believe that what I announced yesterday [Monday] will be sufficient to secure the agreement of the House of Lords,” Clarke told BBC radio. ”I have no desire to make further so-called concessions on the Bill.”
The government had previously proposed allowing the home secretary, acting on the advice of Britain’s spy agencies, to impose curfews, travel bans and any other restrictions, including ones relating to the use of the internet.
Critics of the legislation contend that such orders should be made initially by a judge, not a government minister.
Clarke told the Commons on Monday that he intends to seek an amendment to the Bill when it reaches the House of Lords to oblige the home secretary to apply to a High Court judge for an order to place a person under house arrest or other confinement.
Clarke also announced that he will seek to grant police the power to arrest and detain a suspect while the application to the judge is being made.
Blair has defended the plan as ”absolutely necessary” in protecting Britain from terrorism. But opposition parties and civil rights campaigners say such unprecedented powers will erode Britain’s centuries-old judicial process and the right to a fair trial.
Britain’s highest court ruled in December that the current anti-terror law violates the European Convention on Human Rights by allowing some foreign terror suspects to be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial. — Sapa-AP