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Home affairs
One might be forgiven the observation that there seems to be a competition going on within the Government in Britain, a competition to see who will be the most memorably oppressive Labour Home Secretary of all time.
Before David Blunkett resigned from office to “spend more time” with his new family, it seemed that it was he who running away with the title.
But, in no time at all since he inherited the Blunkett vacancy, Mr Charles Clarke seems to be giving his predecessor a good run for his money.
It has often been said that an Englishman’s home is his castle.
But Mr Clarke’s stated intention to lock up terror suspects in their flats and their semi-detacheds and then throw away the key is aiming to turn those castles now into dungeons as well.
We should remember that people who will be subject to this form of house arrest would not have been proved guilty of any offence under the due process of law.
There is no doubt that, as he proceeds with this dangerous course of action, Mr Clarke will be challenged in the courts at every turn as campaigners deem his moves as illegal.
True, the newly-appointed Home Secretary has protested that he would not have started down the road of house arrest in the first place if he had been given the choice. World events — and a decision by the British Law Lords — have forced the issue upon him.
But, as Irish people, we all remember the problems that follow when bad law is rushed through Parliament. It can take years to undo the damage caused.
Like internment beforehand, if Mr Clarke is allowed his way on house arrest it will mean the suspension of rights of Britons as well as emigrants like Irish people to the freedom from imprisonment without a fair trial first.
All this, in order to detain a few foreign terrorists.
Mr Clarke is proposing to interfere with civil liberties. These civil liberties go back to ancient times in this country. They are respected under the concept of habeas corpus. They should not be interfered with willy-nilly by governments simply in a knee-jerk reaction to events.
As stated, Mr Clarke has said that he would not have wished to start down the road of house arrest. He has been forced into this precipitate action following a decision by judges in the House of Lords.
They ruled that powers to detain 11 foreign terrorist suspects in Belmarsh prison in London were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Lords said that the imprisonment was disproportionate to the threat involved and furthermore applied only to foreigners.
To compound the Home Secretary’s dilemma, it was a decision of a previous holder of that office to incorporate the European convention into British law.
So Mr Clarke’s lamentable response to the Law Lords’ ruling is to decide to take powers to keep all terrorist suspects under house arrest outside prison. He seeks to apply this draconian treatment in equal measure to Britons as well as foreigners, including Irish people.
We have suffered under a previous form of house arrest called internment. Like its older brother, house arrest is a nasty, bullying, foreign form of imprisonment, which has no place in, for example, Burma and Zimbabwe, let alone Britain.
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