Jenkins v Clarke

Simon Jenkins was railing against the UK government's stance on civil liberties again last week.

"Whatever the instant appeal of torture to some enforcers, once systematised it is lethal to sound intelligence and due process of law. Nobody knows what to believe, nor what to do with the victims afterwards.

So Mr Clarke is about to deny British citizens their freedom on the possible say-so of an Uzbek sadist, a Syrian thug or an electrode-wielding Egyptian. A British court says he can do this provided only that a chap from MI6 is not involved — which I would have considered a safeguard. I cannot see what conceivable weight can be put on such “intelligence”. At least in Tosca’s day Scarpia was in the next room. Even assuming that Mr Clarke’s conscience has gone to sleep, what has happened to his brain?

Control orders are a deep offence to British justice. Despite being based on unreliable intelligence and “outsourced” torture, they will become entrenched, like all past “prevention of terror” laws. They will alienate the Muslim population and make martyrs of hoodlums. No court can treat their evidence as usable. As America and Germany show, this will severely compromise the bringing of real terrorists to justice."