Lawyer criticises Clarke’s anti-terror measures
Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman has said new anti-terror measures could actually limit the government’s ability to deport foreign nationals accused of promoting terrorism.
Following a two-week consultation, home secretary Charles Clarke yesterday published a list of certain types of behaviour linked to terrorism that will form the basis for excluding and deporting individuals from Britain
Mr Bindman said the government already had the power to deport foreign citizens where they believed their presence was not conducive to the public good.
But a list of specific offences meant anyone doing anything that was not on that list could challenge a deportation order, he told Channel Four’s Evening News.
“On the face of it, this is not a fast-track method of deporting people”, he added. “All it seems to do at the moment is state the circumstances in which a deportation can take place.”
Mr Bindman’s remarks come as the UN attacked the government’s proposals.
Manfred Novak, of the UN human rights commission, last night said the measures seemed to be part of a tendency across Europe to “circumvent the international obligation not to deport anybody if there is a serious risk that he or she might be subjected to torture”.
Mr Clarke rejected that criticism, saying that the human rights of victims of terrorism should come above the rights of suspected terrorists.
